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> And then there is Apple: the company is deeply exposed to China both in terms of sales and especially when it comes to manufacturing. The reality is that, par

> And then there is Apple: the company is deeply exposed to China both in terms of sales and especially when it comes to manufacturing. The reality is that, particularly when it comes to the latter, Apple doesn’t have anywhere else to go. For what it's worth, I know of multiple Chinese companies that are themselves moving manufacturing overseas, primarily to South East Asia. I'm not convinced that the multinationals have nowhere else to go.

adventured 7y ago
> I'm not convinced that the multinationals have nowhere else to go. Samsung is making most of their phones outside of China. It's clear you can push most multinational manufacturing back out of China. There are several dozen countries to redistribute that manufacturing to. I've probably read 50 or 60 articles in the past year that touch on the varied types of companies moving out of China, from bicycles to bathroom fixtures to clothing to tires. The far bigger Apple issue, is that they don't want to lose the consumer side of the Chinese market. It's trivial for the Chinese authorities to snap their fingers and make Apple persona non grata in China. It wouldn't even take very long, a short duration of total disruption would be enough to wipe out Apple's market share. They'd never get it back, there are plenty of good domestic alternatives. For a company the size of Apple, losing half their position in China could mean losing half a trillion dollars in revenue over the next ~20 years. Beyond the hardware, China's extremely large consumer market is no doubt perceived to be very important for Apple's services shift over time.