Apple asks suppliers to explore shift from China

June: Apple Inc. has asked its largest suppliers to consider the costs of shifting 15 per cent to 30 per cent of its output from China to Southeast Asia in a dramatic shake-up of its production chain, the Nikkei reported.

The U.S. tech giant asked “major suppliers” to evaluate the feasibility of such a migration, the newspaper cited multiple sources as saying. Those included iPhone assemblers Fox-conn Technology Group, Pegatron Corp. and Wistron Corp., MacBook maker Quanta Computer Inc., iPad maker Compal Electron-ics Inc. and AirPod makers Inventec Corp., Luxshare-ICT and GoerTek Inc., Nikkei cited them as saying.