Another revelation from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Apparently, Apple is working with multiple Chinese suppliers, so as to avoid excessive dependence on just one of these. Following a claim that the company is working to acquire more suppliers and roll out its device manufacturing in China, Kuo says this is part of the plan to tackle an increasingly complex supply chain.
Apple’s supply chain management mainly focused on quality and cost in the past. But now, rising geopolitical risks are creating new deglobalization (逆全球化) challenges and increasing the complexity of supply chain management.
— Ming-Chi Kuo (@mingchikuo) August 4, 2022
Apple: The company’s Chinese suppliers increase again
“Apple’s supply chain management in the past focused primarily on quality and cost. But now, growing geopolitical risks are creating new deglobalization challenges and increasing the complexity of supply chain management ”. Thus Ming-Chi Kuo introduces the argument relating to the ever-increasing number of Apple suppliers. As described by the analyst, in fact, the Cupertino company is facing two challenges.
“Challenge 1: Impact of geopolitical risks on sales in China (Apple’s most important foreign market) – he writes in a tweet -. Solution: do business with multiple Chinese suppliers “. And then “Challenge 2: Impact of geopolitical risk on supply efficiency. Solution: build more non-Chinese production sites “. Finally, Kuo reports that “Apple has already implemented both solutions and is expected to accelerate progress in the near future”. After all, the Cupertino company is trying to prevent the recurrence of the supply problem due to the closures due to Covid-19 – as has already happened a few months -. Apple’s idea of relocating suppliers to China, therefore, may be a good solution. For this and any other problems.