There's been several major shifts over the years to build everything in China - this century has been driven by Apple offshoring the American tech industry
At the moment, iPhone production in India is nearly performative - the metaphor is that they make it in China, disassemble it, bring it to India, and reassemble it. This is a slight exaggeration... how slight? I'm not clear; sources from within Apple disagree, but they do concur: the phones aren't in any practical sense being built in any real number in India or Brazil, despite Apple's interest in doing so. It will take fairly immense investment in doing so - not just the assembly factories, but the rest of the Foxconn/Shenzhen supply chain. (It would be moderately practical from a logistic perspective to move it to Taiwan... but that's clearly not going to happen; that doesn't really derisk things from Apple's perspective.) Pragmatically, Apple's iPhone revenue is mostly flat, and investment in one region is thus going to be inherently somewhat zero-sum... barring another amazing consumer breakthrough, which one can never overlook with Apple, but I think you might have to get a necromancer to bring Steve Jobs back - they've been improving their existing lines but not really trailblazing with new ideas. But I think they would have to redirect a lot of money to building up infrastructure anywhere to bring it up to par with the phenomenal engine they've built in China - let alone what the government subsidies there have matched for the manufacturing partners there - and I don't think India's in a position to match that, nor Brazil, nor certainly any of the smaller nations (Vietnam, etc). Korea is already awfully leveraged on behalf of Samsung, so that isn't likely to double down, and Japan isn't in any situation economically or demographically to start serious competition here.
Ternus surprises me. I wouldn't have picked him as the successor. But Apple is notoriously opaque. I'm sure he'll be very competent.
I shat myself at "Chinese firm Lenovo bought Motorola’s cellular business and IBM’s laptop business," I was wondering what happened to my favorite model of phone - the Moto - and ThinkPads, yet here I was buying THREE Lenovo laptops for my kiddos in the pandemic, with no clue they were Chinese. Fuck man, I've been had!! Fuckin' Chinks, *and* the libs that enabled them! #Reindustrialization
Oh, that had escaped your attention? Yeah, the day IBM exited the personal computer business was a pretty depressing one. That’s been a while - back in the oughts; IBM pivoted to being a professional services firm like Deloitte and bounced their PC biz to Lenovo in 05; Moto sold off their cell phones (Motorola Mobility) much more recently… but still does the handheld radios and various other tech, but roughly half their company went to Lenovo.
Great information! Its amazing that countries that over civilize start losing traction...
Universe 25 !
We do get very fond of our creature comforts and, looking about, it does seem like we've become some rather strange mice of late.
The "Beautiful ones " always made me laugh.
Pretty sure UBI would get you more of those than we'd like to really admit
Excellent article. How successful do you think the Iphone pivot to India will be, and what is your opinion on Tim Cook's successor, John Ternus?
At the moment, iPhone production in India is nearly performative - the metaphor is that they make it in China, disassemble it, bring it to India, and reassemble it. This is a slight exaggeration... how slight? I'm not clear; sources from within Apple disagree, but they do concur: the phones aren't in any practical sense being built in any real number in India or Brazil, despite Apple's interest in doing so. It will take fairly immense investment in doing so - not just the assembly factories, but the rest of the Foxconn/Shenzhen supply chain. (It would be moderately practical from a logistic perspective to move it to Taiwan... but that's clearly not going to happen; that doesn't really derisk things from Apple's perspective.) Pragmatically, Apple's iPhone revenue is mostly flat, and investment in one region is thus going to be inherently somewhat zero-sum... barring another amazing consumer breakthrough, which one can never overlook with Apple, but I think you might have to get a necromancer to bring Steve Jobs back - they've been improving their existing lines but not really trailblazing with new ideas. But I think they would have to redirect a lot of money to building up infrastructure anywhere to bring it up to par with the phenomenal engine they've built in China - let alone what the government subsidies there have matched for the manufacturing partners there - and I don't think India's in a position to match that, nor Brazil, nor certainly any of the smaller nations (Vietnam, etc). Korea is already awfully leveraged on behalf of Samsung, so that isn't likely to double down, and Japan isn't in any situation economically or demographically to start serious competition here.
Ternus surprises me. I wouldn't have picked him as the successor. But Apple is notoriously opaque. I'm sure he'll be very competent.
I shat myself at "Chinese firm Lenovo bought Motorola’s cellular business and IBM’s laptop business," I was wondering what happened to my favorite model of phone - the Moto - and ThinkPads, yet here I was buying THREE Lenovo laptops for my kiddos in the pandemic, with no clue they were Chinese. Fuck man, I've been had!! Fuckin' Chinks, *and* the libs that enabled them! #Reindustrialization
Oh, that had escaped your attention? Yeah, the day IBM exited the personal computer business was a pretty depressing one. That’s been a while - back in the oughts; IBM pivoted to being a professional services firm like Deloitte and bounced their PC biz to Lenovo in 05; Moto sold off their cell phones (Motorola Mobility) much more recently… but still does the handheld radios and various other tech, but roughly half their company went to Lenovo.
Holy fucking hell, yeah all of that flew under my radar. Shit.
Again, praying for #reindustrialization
Ah for the good old days when IBM actually made stuff and wasn't just a body shop for consulting services
If Apple's 1984 advert was made today, we all know Apple would be the baddies