The on-going trade war between US and China has seen the ban of Huawei – the biggest smartphone maker out of the country – and Apple is starting to reassess its stand in the country. Even though the Chinese government has made no move to impose a similar ban on Apple in the country, the Cupertino-based company has started thinking about what could be the worst-case scenario.
For those who do not know, Apple does not make its devices in the US. They do design them in the US but depend on China for the assembly of these products. If they were to get hit with a ban, that would almost slow down the company’s production to zero.
As of the time of this writing, it is said that a favourable overturn of the ban on Huawei would still not change Apple’s minds. It seems this event was a wake-up call for them to realise their over-dependence on the Chinese economy.
Due to the complex system of production that’s been established in China, it would be difficult to move all the manufacturing out of the country. That is why Apple would rather move 15 – 30% of the entire production load to either or all of Malaysia, India, Mexico or Indonesia.
Barring all other cases, China still remains one of the biggest markets Apple has in the world. That, and more than five million jobs in China are dependent on the presence of Apple in the country.