Apple's Reduced Orders Challenge Survival of Chinese Supply Chains, Benefit India and Vietnam

Recently, Wistron, Apple's third-largest contract manufacturer, announced the closure of its factory in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, due to operational difficulties. Headquartered in Taiwan, Wistron is a globally renowned IT contract manufacturing giant, with its products including laptops, desktops, servers, smartphones, and more. Wistron is Apple's third-largest contract manufacturer after Foxconn and Pegatron.

In fact, Wistron has also been actively investing in building factories outside of China in recent years, following the shift of industrial chains by their European and American clients. As early as 2017, Wistron established an iPhone assembly factory in India. Wistron has also set up production lines in Vietnam, Malaysia, Mexico, and the Czech Republic. At the same time, Wistron has been continuously selling its assets in China.

Apple has been gradually implementing a strategy to reduce reliance on China in recent years, and has been shifting its supply chain to countries such as India, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries. This has had a significant impact on the "Apple supply chain" companies that heavily rely on Apple. There have also been recent reports that "Foxconn plans to transfer 300 billion yuan of production capacity to India." There have been rumors of withdrawal of Guizhou Foxconn and Nanning Foxconn as well.

With Apple's supply chain shifting to other countries and the clustering effect of the industry, there may be more related supply chains moving out of China. This will have unpredictable and far-reaching impacts on the Chinese economy. China's status as the world's factory may be slowly declining. Millions of migrant workers will also be affected. Reports of difficulties in finding employment for factory workers have continued to emerge this year. Many migrant workers are forced to live on the streets in major cities such as Shenzhen and Shanghai, struggling to survive.