On the 5th day of Apple CEO Cook's visit to China, on October 19th, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong met with Cook in Beijing. The two sides exchanged views on issues such as Apple's development in China and industrial chain supply chain cooperation.
On October 18th, it was announced that China will comprehensively lift restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing industry. Jin Zhuanglong stated that China supports the construction of an open world economy and will comprehensively lift restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing industry, expanding market access for digital products and other markets. I hope Apple can continue to take root in China and invest in it.
In recent years, Apple has promoted the rooting of its supply chain in China, especially since Cook took office in 2011, when he visited Chinese supplier factories multiple times, and Apple's supply chain list has quietly changed. In 2012, Apple first disclosed its supplier list, with only 8 Chinese companies out of 156 suppliers, accounting for only 5%. In Apple's latest 2022 supply chain list, among the more than 430 production bases of 188 suppliers, there are nearly 200 production bases in Chinese Mainland and Taiwan, China, China has far more suppliers than Japan and the United States.
In recent years, Apple has shifted some of its industrial chain to other overseas locations, and as a part of its supply chain, Foxconn and other foundries have also promoted the production of some Apple orders in places such as India. The reporter learned that in this process, Chinese suppliers have moved overseas with the establishment of overseas factories such as Foxconn, and Chinese suppliers are still an important force supporting Apple's production overseas.
Cook stated that Apple continues to promote green manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing in China, continuously enriching the developer ecosystem, and supporting the joint growth of industrial and supply chain partners.
Many domestic apple industry chain enterprises have grown in the footsteps of Apple. On the 18th, Cook visited the Zhejiang factory of Lixun Precision, stating that Lixun Precision was once just a company with a size of 50-100 people, but now it has grown to a size of 250000 people. This is a win-win result that everyone has worked together to achieve.
Li Xun Precision produces iPhones for Apple and has also taken on products such as the Apple Watch and AirPods in the process of developing diversified electronic products. This year, Apple released a new generation of strategic products, the Apple Vision Pro, and Li Xun Precision produces this XR head display device for Apple. The cooperation between Lixun Precision and Apple lasted for 12 years.
The domestic apple supply chain is also undergoing dynamic changes. In 2021, lens module manufacturer Ophelion was "kicked out" of the Apple industry chain, experiencing a revenue decline and net profit loss in 2021 and 2022. However, with the return of Huawei's mobile phone business this year, Oufeiguang "switched to" Huawei and took on orders related to the Huawei Mate 60 series, regaining its importance in the capital market.
Other domestic manufacturers are still squeezing into Apple's supply chain. At the end of August this year, BYD Electronics announced that it would acquire the product production and manufacturing businesses of JabilInc's subsidiaries located in Chengdu and Wuxi for approximately 15.8 billion yuan, including the component production and manufacturing businesses of existing customers. Jabil is a supplier of precision structural components for Apple. Benefiting from the increase in overseas large customer share and the rebound in Android customer demand, BYD Electronics recently announced an expected profit of 2.836 billion to 3116 billion yuan in the first three quarters of this year, an increase of 129.29% to 151.93% year-on-year.
During Cook's visit to China, he also appeared at the Taikoo Li Apple Store in Chengdu and visited the Fourth Primary School in Yucheng District, Ya'an, Sichuan, on the Apple iPhone 15 platform. During Cook's visit to China, Apple announced a donation of 25 million yuan to the China Rural Education Development Foundation.