When the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit, many of the companies that depended on China for their products fell into despair as the country was the first to go into lockdown and thus affected business the most. There are a lot of risks attached to being so dependent on China for Apple and as a result, the company faces a lot of challenges when it comes to addressing this situation and the problems that come with it. and the pandemic just proved further that having all its manufacturing plants in one country is not a good idea as any sort of catastrophe in one place can impeccably deter the operations of the whole company. But having plants in more than one place means that even if one is compromised the other is still safe and operations can continue as somewhat normal. And the former is exactly what happened as the disruption on Apple’s biggest plant caused it to lose an estimated billion dollars each week.
But when it comes to relocating the plants, India is the most viable option available for the company as of now. According to a report released last year, a quarter of all iPhones made in a year could be produced in India by 2025 and that number could double in less than 2 years by 2027, all Apple needs to do is to take the first step. But a more recent report put forward the implication that Apple’s dependency and affiliation with China are not going anywhere or will not even start to weaken until at least the next couple of decades by which it might be too late for Apple to bounce back.
In the political world of China, a collective concern is arising with the fact that the company is bound to do everything that the capital asks of them even going as far as to not support the protests by its workers that happened in the country and limiting the use of Airdrop which the protesters were using to communicate. This concern has been voiced by both Republican Senator Josh Hawley and Democrat Mark Warner.
But even after all this, Apple is still making some attempts to increase their production in India by giving 14 suppliers government permission to enlarge their workings according to Bloomberg. But, there is a catch; all of those 14 companies are Chinese. And as if this wasn’t enough, some political tensions between the two countries are also making it practically impossible for the company to operate because of the recent violent disputes at the border that the two countries share.
Read next: Apple's Stability in Downturn: The Only Tech Giant yet to Reveal Layoffs
But when it comes to relocating the plants, India is the most viable option available for the company as of now. According to a report released last year, a quarter of all iPhones made in a year could be produced in India by 2025 and that number could double in less than 2 years by 2027, all Apple needs to do is to take the first step. But a more recent report put forward the implication that Apple’s dependency and affiliation with China are not going anywhere or will not even start to weaken until at least the next couple of decades by which it might be too late for Apple to bounce back.
In the political world of China, a collective concern is arising with the fact that the company is bound to do everything that the capital asks of them even going as far as to not support the protests by its workers that happened in the country and limiting the use of Airdrop which the protesters were using to communicate. This concern has been voiced by both Republican Senator Josh Hawley and Democrat Mark Warner.
But even after all this, Apple is still making some attempts to increase their production in India by giving 14 suppliers government permission to enlarge their workings according to Bloomberg. But, there is a catch; all of those 14 companies are Chinese. And as if this wasn’t enough, some political tensions between the two countries are also making it practically impossible for the company to operate because of the recent violent disputes at the border that the two countries share.
Read next: Apple's Stability in Downturn: The Only Tech Giant yet to Reveal Layoffs
