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Apple's Achilles Heel
The majority of Apple's suppliers are in mainland China or Taiwan. 90% of Apple's products are made in China through contractors. The chips that Apple designs and the chips that Apple outsources from other fabless companies are all made in Taiwan via TSMC.

With a high possibility of war between China and Taiwan sometime soon, the ramifications of that war are much bigger for $AAPL than for $NFLX $META $GOOGL $AMZN, and $MSFT.

Sure, Apple has tried to diversify its manufacturing network to countries like Vietnam, India, the Philippines, Thailand, etc. but those developments are small and will need time to develop and scale. These manufacturing facilities in these countries can't just replace the capacity that Apple has in China because they're too small.

If China were to invade Taiwan, over 90% of the advanced chip production will go offline. The wave of sanctions that China will face as punishment for its invasion of Taiwan will most likely lockout corporations from accessing their factories in China and prevent companies from receiving parts that they source from China.

This looming geopolitical crisis will make will turn Apple's immense reliance on China from a good thing (because it cost less to build an iPhone in China than in America) to a bad thing because of the sanctions that could be imposed on China if China were to invade Taiwan. Apple will have to build most of its manufacturing network from scratch as a result of this.

For all the Apple investors out there, pay attention to the brewing tensions between China and Taiwan. Based on how things are going, there's a high chance that a war could start soon.
Apple
Supply Chain Innovation
The way your Apple products are made is a reflection of our values. Values that include the people in our supply chain and the planet.

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