One of the most important manufacturers of Apple, AirPods maker GoerTek has said that the company's Chinese suppliers are rushing to exit China, in the wake of escalating tension between Beijing and Washington, the media has reported.
Apple's Chinese suppliers are moving capacity out of the country far faster than many observers anticipated, said one of the tech giant's most important partners, according to a report by news agency Bloomberg. AirPods maker GoerTek is one of the many manufacturers exploring locations beyond its native China, which today cranks out the bulk of the world’s gadgets from iPhones to Sony's PlayStations, the report added.
Weifang, China-headquartered GoerTek is mulling to invest an initial $280 million in a new factory in Vietnam and also planning to expand in India, company's Deputy Chairman Kazuyoshi Yoshinaga was quoted as saying in an interview.
“Starting from last month, so many people from the client side are visiting us almost every day,” Yoshinaga was quoted as saying by the Bloomberg report, from his offices at GoerTek’s sprawling industrial complex north of Hanoi.
This comes close to the heels of Finland-based Salcomp, which is also an Apple iPhone charger manufacturer, looking to more than double its headcount in India to nearly 25,000 over the next 2-3 years. A company executive was recently quoted as saying by news agency Reuters that the whole supply chain is looking for an alternative outside of China.
Salo, Finland-headquartered Salcomp, which currently employs about 12,000 people in Chennai with 85 per cent of them being women, had reached an agreement in 2019 to take over a facility, formerly owned by Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia, in the southern city of Chennai and started operations in 2020.
It is pertinent to note that the iPhone maker has been diversifying its supply chain to India over the past few months. To recall, in October last year, Apple asked its contract manufacturers to shift some of its AirPods and Beats production to India for the first time ever.