Component suppliers for AirPods say they are under enormous pressure to move production outside of China.
This supplier claimed to have been visited by representatives of a client from the United States, who forced them to move from China. Apple's name is not mentioned here, but according to 9to5Mac, the company in question is almost certainly Apple.
Currently, the component supplier admits that he has invested in building a factory in Vietnam, and is exploring expansion to India, we were quoted as saying from 9to5Mac, Thursday (2/3/2023).
Apple has actually been trying to reduce its dependence on China for years. However, the pandemic has forced this plan to be realized in the near future.
The reason is that concentrating the production of its devices in one country, in this case China, makes the business too risky. This can be seen from the various production disruptions that have occurred due to strict lockdown regulations in China some time ago due to COVID-19.
One of the disruptions caused by the lockdown has an impact on the production of the iPhone 14 line, which makes Apple potentially lose millions of dollars per week. For this reason, Apple has gradually begun to move its device production facilities outside of China, such as India and Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that Apple's component suppliers are accelerating their efforts to relocate their production facilities outside of China. Even one AirPods assembler admitted that one of his clients was terrorized almost every day to pressure them to leave China immediately.
"Starting last month, a lot of people from the client side are visiting us almost every day," said Kazuyoshi Yoshinaga, Deputy Director of GoerTek, the maker of AirPods. According to Yoshinaga, the question asked every day was, "When can you move in?"
While GoerTek is not as well known as Foxconn, they are a very large supplier of Apple components. They will start producing various Apple headsets in Vietnam in 2024.