There's sort of the line of business. Just assuming from a black box, Apple wants to build devices in these low-cost countries. Is it a competitive advantage to do this themselves? Do they have the skillset and wherewithal to do it well? They design chips, but they have TSMC make them, because among other things, there's much more to being a fab that bluntly, I think apple is not equipped for. Similarly, I think, design the products, figure out processes, then get them from the companies that spend all their time coordinating and building the stuff at a global scale.
Not to exculpate Foxconn, this is not the first time there's been stories like this of Indian facilities of Taiwan ODMs. And usually the first thing that gets pointed out, is that the ODM is itself using local contractors. So the reality is, where does the buck actually stop? The big question I have, is how would apple do this themselves? Is it that Foxconn has not quite figured out how to operate in India effectively, or is there some implicit outsourcing of misery to the next sub-contractor?
I assume apple also works with everyone else who has the scale to build iPhones like Wistron and Flex, but apple already similarly put one of Wistron's Indian factories on probation after a riot due to unpaid wages(?). I want to say they were mainly doing macbooks and ipads?
My understanding was one of the things is that the ODM books all the components and sort of capital for building things, so there's some capital structure things that I probably don't fully appreciate. No guarantee that's correct though...