Remember that India's population is still largely a service oriented country, with about 70% still engaged in agriculture. How are these people able to work in a high-end electronics environment is a mystery. India is putting the cart before the horse by embarking on big time manufacturing without preparing the ground well before it happened. But India has little choice, because without manufacturing to provide mass job creation for its huge growing population, that is now No.1 in the world. Indians must be really proud of this achievement.
Apple is now in a bind in India. This is made worse by some of the supply chain supporting players moving out, that were forcibly told to follow Apple's big move to India earlier. Ironically these supply chain players are now attempting to return to restart their main production facilities in mainland China, where manpower is not a problem and infrastructures to serve them are all at hand.
Of course there are so much propaganda about Western companies lining up and rushing to move out of China, but please have some salt on hand. No other country is large enough to provide the kind of environment for large scale manufacturing without the kind of skilled workers and supply chains to back it up. Finding out the hard way is truly costly.
Under pressure by Apple's move to India, Wistron Corporation, a Taiwanese company, relocated part of its Iphone assembly facilities from China to India. And so does Foxconn Technology Group of Taiwan. Without the skilled manpower support in India, which arguably is the Achille's Heel of electronics manufacturing, Wistron suffered and eventually and predictably had to relinquish its facilities it set up in India to the Tata Group, the Indian conglomerate. Foxcomm, likewise is in dire straits for the same manpower shortage reasons. Both are now regretting their earlier moves and intends to move back and concentrate on mainland China. They are realising that there is no way they can decouple from China.
Chinese companies could do well to avoid India, as it has already been shown that when they have achieved success after working their guts out, the Indian Government will find ways and means to force them to cede over power to Indian control. That has already happened with Xiaomi, Oppo and others, and not just Chinese companies, but Wistron of Taiwan as well. Just wondering is this the way why Indians are sitting pretty on top as CEOs of multinational conglomerates?
Modi can do all he wants to lure USA companies to invest in India, but it is best for those in Asia, and particularly China, to avoid India, not just in investments, but in bidding for projects in India. The problems will only be known to them after the agreements are signed. Japan found out the hard way with its HSR project in India.
Anonymous
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Indians have pipe dreams. I mean those Native American Indians always smoke, what they used to call 'peace pipes', when negotiating with the Whites, and got conned everytime. Me one puff and you one puff, and everything is solved. Ahem ahem, solved meaning gone with the smoke for the Native American Indians. Land gone, people genocided, but they had the bible in hand.
Hope this time the Whites get conned instead by the other forked tongue people. Well, looks like Apple probably did get conned this time isn't it, but will never talk about it. But Apple was pressurised by the USA Government to move away from China.
I almost fell off my chair when I read that Biden is going to build a railroad all the way across the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean. And he wants to also build a bridge across the Indian Ocean to rival China's BRI. Whether Joe Biden will still be alive to see his wet dream come to fruition is the question, not to talk about the expertise needed to build that railway and bridge connection. Ok, he said he is fit, healthy and robust. Who can argue with that?
In fact Joe Biden did not know what he was talking about actually about the railroad across the Pacific, since his handlers later had to come out to correct his dementia mind. He probably thinks the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean are in USA's Long Island Sound or the Great Lakes. Even then, it probably will not be built for another thousand years. But let us just assume he will do what he said for the time being. Trump will take them down as soon as he is elected again. It is just a game to them.
There have been so many projects that Joe Biden has in his demented mind, the US$600 billion for global infrastructures, the US$350 billion (later shrink to US$350 million) for 50 African nations to do digital transformation, the US$150 million for ASEAN to buy sampans to patrol the waters around this region, and now the imaginery bridge and railway to be built to nowhere. What will that cost is no problem for the USA in Joe's mind of course. Just print away the problem, export the inflation and it becomes someone else's problem. Not so easy this time around.
What and which country is that bridge supposed to connect? No card to prompt him, since it was some hot air expelled on the spur of the moment. Just pluck the great idea from thin air and gloat about it. That is about it. Joe Biden really thinks that the whole of ASEAN and India belongs to USA, and he can build anything he wants.
It is reported that 50% of iPhone casings produced in India were unacceptable. That is a warning to those buying iPhone 15 coming out in September.
It is further reported that most of the components for the iPhones still have to be secured from downstream supply chains in China and shipped to India, which means that India is basically just assembling the iPhones. The cost of shipping alone will add to cost and negate part of the savings on cheaper labour cost in India, not to mention the cost of sub standard items to write off and discarded.
Apple is now planning to sheepishly return to the Chinese market, knowing it cannot do away with the Chinese manufacturing hub, and now giving back some of its iPhone 15 production
to Luxshare Precision, a mainland Chinese Company, having been unable to depend on Wistron which is no more an Apple manufacturer, and now bought over by Tata.
Will this be a fatal mistake made by Apple and a prelude to its downfall. Left to be seen.
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