This will be the logical conclusion to every major American corporation unless someone puts a stop to this. If profit comes before everything, then so will China's 1.4B potential market vs US's 330M market.
From a recent interview[2] with Tim Cook:
>"World peace through world trade," Cook said, adding that operating in foreign countries means Apple has to "acknowledge that there are different laws in other markets."
0: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/09/apple-and-google...
1: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50573069
2: https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-china-tim-cook-respons...
And here I was under the impression that most everyone - everyone important enough at least - understood that Fukuyama was (very) wrong. Perhaps his definition of "world peace" is different.
(Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace)
>In The Great Illusion, Angell's primary thesis was, in the words of historian James Joll, that "the economic cost of war was so great that no one could possibly hope to gain by starting a war the consequences of which would be so disastrous."[4] For that reason, a general European war was very unlikely to start, and if it did, it would not last long.
While China is indeed an important and huge market for sales... approximately 100% of Apple's products are manufactured in China (save some tiny fraction that are assembled in India or Texas).
Every iPhone sold everywhere worldwide (except the few assembled in India) comes from China.
Apple cannot exist without China. Full stop.
They make something like 200 million iPhones per year.
If you think that can be moved "just fine" then we will have to agree to disagree.
Producing something of the iPhone's quality, at the scale of a half million per day, every single day (that's 23,000 per hour, every hour, 24/7, for an entire year) is not something one can just pick up and move, even with Apple's resources.
It would take several years, if indeed it is possible at all. There are dozens or hundreds of managing workers at Foxconn who have been designing and producing iPhone manufacturing lines for a decade+, and I doubt China would give them and their families all exit visas to move to some other country to assist Foxconn and Apple in divesting themselves of the CCP's prerogatives.
This ain't Factorio.
Then let's agree to disagree, as Samsung, with it's 253 million shipments[1] does exactly that having explicitly moved out of China[2]. It is not impossible.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_ph... [2]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-china/samsun...
If something has potential, then it will happen. The higher the potential, the faster it will happen. And laws, contrary to what many believe, only has limited potential.
So if leaving China has potential, then it will happen. Tariffs have already made the potential higher, but unfortunately it doesn't seem like it's breaking even just yet.
Apple is still doing China because it wants to, not because it has to. At their size they have the time and money to invest in multiple locations and spread their risks.
So perhaps it is "approximately 95%"?
It would be really interesting to know the actual number, wouldn't it?