After Apple, now Google is also looking to reduce its production dependency on China as the company is shifting production of its newest Pixel device to Vietnam, according to a New York Times report that cited people familiar with the matter. This comes amid the rising geopolitical tensions, COVID-19 lockdowns and supply chain constraints in China.
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China's factory activity continues to shrink
China's factory activity continued to shrink for the second consecutive month in August, the country recently announced. Apart from smartphone makers Apple and Google, Amazon is also manufacturing its Fire TV sticks out of the Indian state of Chennai and Microsoft is shipping its Xbox gaming consoles out of Ho Chi Minh City -- all these devices used to be manufactured in China several years ago.
Google is working to shift the assembling of its Pixel devices from Foxconn plants in southern China over to Vietnam where it would begin producing the Google Pixel 7. The US-based tech giant is reportedly expecting Vietnam to produce as much as half of next year’s high-end Pixel devices.
“The empire of manufacturing in China is being shaken,” Lior Susan, Founder of Eclipse Venture Capital, which invests in hardware and manufacturing start-ups was quoted as saying by the NYT report. “More and more capital is going to pull manufacturing out of China and find an alternative.”
Apple iPhone 14 to be almost simultaneously made in China and India for the first time
Meanwhile, Apple, for the first time, will ship the India-made iPhone 14 simultaneously with the China-made iPhone models in the second half of 2022, noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently said. Apple is slated to launch the new iPhone 14 lineup on September 7.
According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple's contract manufacturing partner Foxconn in India will ship the iPhone 14 units from its production facility almost simultaneously with China for the first time ever. "My latest survey indicates Foxconn's iPhone production site in India will ship the new 6.1" iPhone 14 almost simultaneously with China for the first time in 2H22 (India being one quarter or more behind in the past)," Kuo, Analyst at TFI International Securities recently tweeted.
According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple's contract manufacturing partner Foxconn in India will ship the iPhone 14 units from its production facility almost simultaneously with China for the first time ever.