Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 358 posts

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#131

Post by lpcvoid »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #106
bigDinosaur wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What aspect of China makes the West look like a 'backwater'? I literally cannot think of a single thing. That doesn't mean China has no positive aspects. The West is also not monolithic.

> What aspect of China makes the West look like a 'backwater'? Compare China homicide rates to USA. Or China incarceration rate to USA incarceration rate.

I have not done any research on this and am genuinely interested - why can I trust the numbers the CCP releases on incarceration rate?

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#132

Post by verdenti »

Qtips87 wrote: post #79

If Apple want to exit China for geopolitical reason it should move to Vietnam. Western manufacturers have set up shops in India before and there were few successful stories and many have exit eventually. Ford for example exit India after not turning a profit for decades. When people point out India's problem it is the usual suspect like government red tapes, poor infrastructure, unreliable electric grid...etc. Some e…

No post body was provided.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#133

Post by throwawaaay129 »

fyresala wrote: post #93
throwawaaay129 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where people get the idea people are semi-enslaved in factories.. Having lived in China, in my second hand experience Chinese worker protection laws are quite strict. Somewhere between US and Europe. It's not really easy to fire people and people regularly sue their employers and win. The legal system is generally very heavily biased towards the little guy I just feel really bad for these people. They pr…

Your views of labor law are completely wrong. > in my second hand experience Chinese worker protection laws are quite strict. And yes, it's very strict. Lawful working hours are 40 hours per week. Lawfully firing a employee requires higher compensation than US. Do you really believe above is enforced in China? Next time when you visiting China, ask them if familiar with this quote: laws in China are strictly legislat…

I mean I lived a sheltered life in the city and my friends were city folks, but I often hear people had issues firing bad employees. And on the flip side people new their rights and knew they couldn't just be left off on a random day.

Companies seemed always cautious with firing. Yeah there was tons of sneaky stuff and people not getting their contracts and lots of grey area stuff - maybe the enforcement wasn't great. But my point is that they actually have some mechanisms in place that do function when it's you vs a company (not you vs the government). So it's not fair to characterize the whole place as lawless

In this case from the news it seemed to have worked out exactly as it should legally. Foxconn messed up (or tried to get sneaky with paying people), they got slapped on the wrist by the government, everyone got paid

I hope their legal systems keep improving (it was way worse a decade or two ago) and less companies get away with screwing their employees. I'm skeptical other developing nations like India are on some other higher level with their legal systems.

I think your original post is extremely sensationalist - comparing factory work to pseudoslave labor in cotton fields - especially given you're from a background that benefitted from this (I assume your parents worked when the system was much worse)

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#134

Post by tyingq »

amelius wrote: post #117
rolisz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people live on farms and grow animals, kill them and then eat them. I haven't killed one myself, but I have been at pig butchering "parties" at my grandparents or uncles and saw how the sausage is made. Still tastes yummy.

I bet if you ask city people to either kill an animal or grab a shrink-wrapped package containing a vegetarian meat substitute, by far the majority would choose the latter.

I would guess a fair amount of city dwellers have gone fishing.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#135

Post by FollowingTheDao »

fyresala wrote: post #26

iPhone made in China is no better than the cotton from Xinjiang. Earlier the reports are workers in the China iPhone factory had a protest and brutal conflict with the local police. Reasons varied from unbearable working condition, the zero-covid policy, and being deceived about the compensation. After the local police oppressed the campaign, the government assigned headcounts to local villages, demanding them to fil…

> Apple and many westerners never understand the risk and the ethics implication of doing business in China.

That was a a great apology for colonial industrialism and how US companies exploit workers in other countries and just move on when they also decimate their culture.

They know the risks. They do not care. They are on to the next "risk" where there will make another few billion.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#136

Post by mayama »

throwaway4good wrote: post #24

India has had its share of strikes and protests over working conditions at Apple's Taiwanese suppliers: https://www.reuters.com/world/india/food-poisoning-foxconns-... Dozens released after protest at India plant of Apple supplier Foxconn Police in India have released dozens of those detained for blocking a key highway in a protest against food poisoning at a Foxconn (2317.TW) unit, the country's second instance of u…

India has tricky labour laws, bureaucracy, land issues and labour unions to deal with when manufacturing at scale. But, it isn't unsolvable problem. Samsung, Xiaomi, Hyundai etc. manufacture millions of phones, tvs, cars etc. in India and are quite successful being #1 or #2. That Wistron issue seems more like coordination issue between different contractors when starting up new plant and there was no repeat of that issue.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#137

Post by FollowingTheDao »

cpursley wrote: post #49
fyresala wrote: post #26

iPhone made in China is no better than the cotton from Xinjiang. Earlier the reports are workers in the China iPhone factory had a protest and brutal conflict with the local police. Reasons varied from unbearable working condition, the zero-covid policy, and being deceived about the compensation. After the local police oppressed the campaign, the government assigned headcounts to local villages, demanding them to fil…

I basically agree with you on all points. But can we please drop this "civilized world" term? I suggest "democratic world".

> I suggest "democratic world".

That's funny. Where is that?

Not the U.S., that is for sure. Look how the government just screwed over the rail workers:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/01/joe-bi...

There is a one world government and it is a oligarchy.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#138

Post by FollowingTheDao »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #36
Reubend wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised it's so low. I know that they already have very established processes in China, and their contractors have probably invested a lot in tooling for those factories, but it seems interesting that they would still prefer to move less that 50% of their capacity there. Maybe they see India as carrying its own risks?

India, being a democracy, means that governments have to give in to demands of voter groups. The two largest voter groups are farmers and low wage labor. This has ensured that acquiring land for large scale projects or changing labor laws carries massive political risk. Changes to India’s farm laws now seem next to impossible. I doubt India will have a more popular government than it has today. Yet, it had to cave in…

>India, being a democracy, means that governments have to give in to demands of voter groups

Love how everyone is throwing around the word "democracy" in this thread like saying it makes hot true and that it has some specific meaning.

The only reason Apple is moving there is because it is NOT a democracy.

'Electoral autocracy': The downgrading of India's democracy https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56393944

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#139

Post by hulitu »

throwawaaay129 wrote: post #50
fyresala wrote: post #26

iPhone made in China is no better than the cotton from Xinjiang. Earlier the reports are workers in the China iPhone factory had a protest and brutal conflict with the local police. Reasons varied from unbearable working condition, the zero-covid policy, and being deceived about the compensation. After the local police oppressed the campaign, the government assigned headcounts to local villages, demanding them to fil…

I don't know where people get the idea people are semi-enslaved in factories.. Having lived in China, in my second hand experience Chinese worker protection laws are quite strict. Somewhere between US and Europe. It's not really easy to fire people and people regularly sue their employers and win. The legal system is generally very heavily biased towards the little guy I just feel really bad for these people. They pr…

> I don't know where people get the idea people are semi-enslaved in factories.

Just normal propaganda.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#140

Post by twoodfin »

threatofrain wrote: post #29
mikymoothrowa wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they would still prefer to move less that 50% of their capacity there It is not Apple saying this. So, this is some Analyst doing a linear regression. So we can't read too much into this. It could be possible that India starts manufacturing 80% of iPhones. Or It could be less than the claimed 45% too. Also, if there's no reason for Foxconn to dismantle existing manufacturing facilities all at once.

> So, this is some Analyst doing a linear regression. I'd note that Ming-chi Kuo is a very well known analyst.

He’s also known for providing, as the Apple rumor mill goes, extremely accurate information on their supply chain, particularly for iPhones.
Post reply on HN