Apple don't move to China to save money, they moved to China in order to meet high demand. There was simply nowhere else that could produce the volume. And technically, Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, but that's not an important detail. Point is, only Chinese/Taiwanese contract manufacturers could give Apple the volume they needed.
I really wish you could talk to some more manufacturing types -- there are many on this site. A lot of things at scale can't be done anywhere except in China.
Now, you can argue that's just about "saving money", because Apple should have built its own automated ports and infrastructure and commodity trading hubs and paid to relocate workers to create a bespoke manufacturing center somewhere else -- but subject to realistic constraints, there was China and no second option to produce iPhones at scale.
>Apple don't move to China to save money, they moved to China in order to meet high demand. There was simply nowhere else that could produce the volume.
This is the situation now, but was it also the same situation when Apple started iPod production there in 2001?
From what I understand most of these electronics supply chain advantages China enjoys now are due to large companies like Apple building those out in China in the late 90's and early 2000's. You might remember Japan had a massive electronics manufacturing industry which became "too expensive", so China was the answer to the need of cheap(slave?) labor.
Don’t forget that this isn’t one company: Apple circa 2000 couldn’t afford to buck an industry-wide trend and since they were using more components made by other companies you get a lot of synergies from having assembly happen near where other parts are made.
This doesn’t excuse them – I think MBAs gave China enough leverage to include Harvard’s business school in human rights lawsuits – but it’s the kind of thing which is larger than the company whose logo is on the box and the answer has to be legislative.
> Apple don't move to China to save money, they moved to China in order to meet high demand. There was simply nowhere else that could produce the volume.
I'm calling BS. Money is based on volume (supply) and demand. China does mainly assembly which makes up a paltry 4% of costs [0] and assembly is low skill labor. With a 25% profit margin, there's no way they couldn't spend/invest in other countries to build up assembly capacity.
I really wish you could talk to some more manufacturing types -- there are many on this site. A lot of things at scale can't be done anywhere except in China.
Now, you can argue that's just about "saving money", because Apple should have built its own automated ports and infrastructure and commodity trading hubs and paid to relocate workers to create a bespoke manufacturing center somewhere else -- but subject to realistic constraints, there was China and no second option to produce iPhones at scale.
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