Apple speeds up plans to ship manufacturing away from China
Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley discusses Apple's plans to iron out global supply chains after unrest in China disrupted iPhone production.
Video Transcript
- All right, we're keeping it moving with tech, and Apple speeding up plans to shift manufacturing away from China. This according to multiple reports. Now, the move was triggered by recent unrest in the nation, and much of that a reaction to Beijing's zero COVID policy. Joining us with more on that is Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley. So Dan, where is Apple looking to move to?
DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, Rachelle, there's some movement that could be taking place in India, where we could see iPads being produced in that country. It's not as though there is no Apple footprint there, as far as building devices. They started building the iPhone 14 there shortly after the launch of that device. So they do have some expertise there. But they also have iPad manufacturing in other countries, including Vietnam. But they want to move these devices and the manufacturing capabilities out of China just as a result of the supply crunches that we saw throughout COVID.
Now we're dealing with-- or Apple, rather, is dealing with a slowdown in the ability for devices to get off the line. And that's impacting shoppers at the end of the journey, who may have to wait until well into January or even February to get their hands on a new smartphone. And that, then, could force those consumers to potentially pick another brand, perhaps go to Android, or if not, then purchase a less expensive iPhone that's already available on the market or on shelves. And that lowers Apple's average selling price.
So there's a multitude of different issues that kind of feed into this. I think one of the important things to note is that the big problem for Apple getting the factories out of China or moving out of China is that the workers who have the kind of ability to work on these very intricate designs don't exactly exist wherever you show up. You have to train them up. You have to get them ready. So it can take some time for them to actually get the ability to have these factories that they're building in these other locations, or hope to work with, up to speed.
- Dan Howley there with the very latest on Apple and their focus on India now. Thanks so much for that.
