With a steady stream of COVID-19 lockdowns in China, Apple is now apparently menacing an “action plan” to diversity its supply chain management risks out of the country.
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, China-based suppliers such Foxconn have struggled with lockdowns. In these cases, factories have either needed to stop production for a certain period of time or extensively test workers to ensure that no COVID infections are present.
Kuo offered the following opinion in a recent tweet:
Apple’s new product introduction (NPI) sites are almost in China. It was the first time for Apple to evaluate building NPI sites in non-China seriously when the COVID-19 outbreak first occurred about two years ago, but internally it only proceeded to the proposal stage. However, after the recent lockdown in China, to diversify supply chain management risks, building NPI sites in non-China is no longer a proposal but an action plan.
Apart from China, Apple is already diversifying its supply chain to other countries such as India and Taiwan.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via 9to5Mac and @mingchikuo