<story><title>50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge</title><url>https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/14/iphone-casings-produced-in-india/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpgvm</author><text>Thing is this is also still the really basic stuff. It&amp;#x27;s only going to get worse as they attempt to shift more complicated things.&lt;p&gt;People tend to drastically underestimate the both the scale and sophistication of manufacturing in China.&lt;p&gt;For certain products the only reasonable alternatives to China are going to be South Korea and Japan in the medium term as they are the only other hubs with the required sophistication in electronics, batteries, etc.&lt;p&gt;However you will need to pay a significant premium over China and probably still face lower yields and end up sending said parts somewhere else for final assembly etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qqtt</author><text>Do you think Apple is drastically underestimating the scale and sophistication required to move their manufacturing? Do you think Tim Cook made a strategic error here, owing partially to his lack of understanding of the involvement of these processes?&lt;p&gt;There will be growing pains moving and scaling manufacturing anywhere. The fact that there are early obstacles and hurdles does not mean we should simply throw up our hands and say &amp;quot;whelp, looks like China is the only option, we have no choice but to stick there!&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Apple is developing manufacturing infrastructure to derisk their supply chain. Because they have 50% rejection rates for iPhone casings at one particular manufacturing facility in India does not really imply anything other than teething issues with scaling up.&lt;p&gt;The original Financial Times original this blog post is based on fleshes out the issues and obstacles in greater depth IMO and is worth a read:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ft.com&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;0d70a823-0fba-49ae-a453-2518afcb01f9&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ft.com&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;0d70a823-0fba-49ae-a453-2518afcb0...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced in India shows Apple’s challenge</title><url>https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/14/iphone-casings-produced-in-india/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jpgvm</author><text>Thing is this is also still the really basic stuff. It&amp;#x27;s only going to get worse as they attempt to shift more complicated things.&lt;p&gt;People tend to drastically underestimate the both the scale and sophistication of manufacturing in China.&lt;p&gt;For certain products the only reasonable alternatives to China are going to be South Korea and Japan in the medium term as they are the only other hubs with the required sophistication in electronics, batteries, etc.&lt;p&gt;However you will need to pay a significant premium over China and probably still face lower yields and end up sending said parts somewhere else for final assembly etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>theshrike79</author><text>There is a (in)famous interview with Steve Jobs about why Apple is manufacturing in China.&lt;p&gt;Paraphrased it went something like &amp;quot;we could fit all experts in $hardware_field in this conference room, but in China we can&amp;#x27;t fit them in a stadium&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The scale at which China has built up an educated work force is at a staggering scale.</text></comment>