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

271–280 of 358 posts

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

#271

Post by Qtips87 »

questime wrote: post #259
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…

I could argue European's have very low IQs relative to access to resources/wealth - it would be equally stupid and racist but I would have better evidence than you to back it up just by looking at how much they get outcompeted by their Indian origin fellow citizens.

European outcompeted by their Indian origin fellow citizens? If you people are so great how come India is a shithole?

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

#272

Post by SamReidHughes »

ignoramous wrote: post #268
SamReidHughes wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, be real for a second -- Apple doing manufacturing in China benefited the common Chinese factory worker by driving up wages.

That benefit overlooks a lot of human cost involved. And if you're being real, you'd know the major beneficiary is Apple. The American companies aren't quite the saviors that folks might think they are.

Vague hand-waving about "human cost" of having factories that employ people is a load of abstract obscurantist nonsense.

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

#273

Post by adventured »

ignoramous wrote: post #268
SamReidHughes wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, be real for a second -- Apple doing manufacturing in China benefited the common Chinese factory worker by driving up wages.

That benefit overlooks a lot of human cost involved. And if you're being real, you'd know the major beneficiary is Apple. The American companies aren't quite the saviors that folks might think they are.

You'll be unable to paint an alternative scenario for bypassing the process of gradual wage increases because it would never work in reality.

What was China going to do, warp straight to having an economy with $60,000 GDP per capita? If things actually worked that way, countries as diverse as Romania, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Pakistan, Mexico - they'd all do it too. It doesn't work that way. You have to move up, gradually, through a very long and grinding road of progress and persistence.

Subtract the companies that provide the jobs for developing nations, and you have nothing. And you can't give a single other example throughout modern industrial history for an alternative path, because there can't be one. The capital investment has to come from outside, it has to be incentivized (otherwise why bother), and or you have to very slowly build it up from development internally + foreign trade (and that internal development will be accomplished by corporations just the same, just as it also was in China by domestic companies that behave just like Apple or worse).

Name a country that has skipped from poor and developing to affluent and developed without going through it (specifically without relying overwhelmingly on natural resources like oil, those are extreme outliers).

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

#274

Post by alex_sf »

FabHK wrote: post #217
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…

> iPhone made in China is no better than the cotton from Xinjiang. I think if you'll ask the suppressed people of Xinjiang, you'll find that they disagree. > It turns out that in spite of all values that Apple promotes, it actually cares about nothing but the profit How is Apple responsible for the Chinese Zero-COVID policy, and the actions of the Chinese police? Have you read Apple's extensive policies on Supply Cha…

> I think if you'll ask the suppressed people of Xinjiang, you'll find that they disagree.

Are you suggesting that China's slaves would prefer that the global economy continuing exploiting them?

> How is Apple responsible for the Chinese Zero-COVID policy, and the actions of the Chinese police?

They are enriching the entity that designed the policies and directs the police.

> Have you read Apple's extensive policies on Supply Chain standards and ethics?

Yes. Have you read the extensive laws against murder? Does murder still happen?

> China is also no longer cheap. Wages have skyrocketed, with the average factory worker making $6 per hour on average in 2020, up from less than a dollar in 2006. The average wage of a Chinese factory worker will very soon surpass the U.S. federal minimum wage.

No, it won't. Chinese labor law is a joke. Nobody in these factories are actually working 44 hours.

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

#275

Post by Qtips87 »

dartharva wrote: post #215
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…

When, how and who measured the IQ of India's population? Where did you get this number from?

You can look it up yourself. I don't believe it either at one point and I did some digging and all the evidence points to a low IQ Indian population. There is of course very smart Indians but the distribution of the population as a whole is center around 82.

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

#276

Post by ceejayoz »

Reubend wrote: post #3
akmittal wrote: post #2

> Apple’s longer-term goal is to ship 40% to 45% of iPhones from India, compared with a single-digit percentage currently, according to Ming-chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities who follows the supply chain. Suppliers say Vietnam is expected to shoulder more of the manufacturing for other Apple products such as AirPods, smartwatches and laptops.

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?

Going all-in on any individual location has risks. At Apple's scale, even 25% in four countries means enormous efficiencies of scale in each, but if one country has a coup or goes to war with the US, it's not as disastrous.

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

#277

Post by wellthisisgreat »

RC_ITR wrote: post #240
ksec wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple and many westerners never understand the risk and the ethics implication of doing business in China. May be for many westerners, but not Apple. They knew exactly what they are doing. >It turns out that in spite of all values that Apple promotes, it actually cares about nothing but the profit and its comfortable zone in China. Which is the worst part of it all. Their insane hypocrisy. Now that Apple is only mov…

Exactly. Tim Cook was the supply chain guy. He became CEO because he was the only one as maniacally focused as Jobs, as proven to Steve by his willingness to make a literal deal with the devil. The India plan will probably stick because Apple feels burned by zero covid and won’t keep themselves open to that kind of risk going forward.

Wouldn't India be similarly volatile? To an extent, it is possible to compare any country to the phenomenon that is China. Isn't the current government run by a wannabe strongman (sorry, but I cannot bring myself to use the word "strong" in earnest next to that kind of politician) the type of administrator who has shown recently to do all kinds of random moves for the sake of posturing/self-imposed grandieur?

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

#278

Post by wellthisisgreat »

Qtips87 wrote: post #262
jasonhansel wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I have no praise for the CCP, India's current government is not without its problems: https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/04/modi-india-personality-...

India has never been a democracy in the sense that the Westerners understood it. India is also a fucking land grabber. It has land grabbed every single of its neighbors once the British left town. You never hear it in the West because it doesn't fit the narrative the West has on India.

Could you please expand a bit on the land-grabbing part? I would love to learn more.

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

#279

Post by pstuart »

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…

It seems like more robotics is called for, if only Apple had the money to invest in it...

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

#280

Post by ceejayoz »

cududa wrote: post #253
nixcraft wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a thoughtful reply. Working in IT spoiled me, and I like having a backup or failover server or data centre but for Apple factory. But, it makes sense now, knowing the scale of this Apple iPhone factory, it is next to impossible to build the backup factory. Thanks!

Consider that each new iPhone and iPhone size required retooling entire portions of the manufacturing line. And by retooling I mean physical tools - the shoots that deliver the right sized screw to the individuals assembling that part, soldering techniques changing and requiring different equipment, spot weld equipment etc. Building a “backup factory” would also require that massive investment every year to revamp th…

You don't build a backup factory to sit there unutilized.

You build four large factories instead of one mega factory and run all four. Similar number of machines, similar investment to update them - each is big enough for efficiencies of scale - but if one gets shut down by the local government or has a massive fire or there's a coup you've still got 3/4 of your production going.

Post reply on HN