News briefing 

By May 2021 Apple announced its list of 2020’s top 200 supply chains

Impact analysis 

Since Apple is a representative of high-end products, it symbolizes that the technical strength of manufacturers has grown to a certain level if they can penetrate its supply chain. In the list announced this year, the number of Chinese manufacturers has increased to 38 from the previous 31. On the other hand, Japanese manufacturers dropped from 37 to 32, while Taiwanese factories have remained unchanged at 45.

 

 

If we are to focus on circuit board-related manufacturers, the number of manufacturers has dropped from 15 to 13, with 9 being Taiwanese manufacturers, 3 Chinese, and 1 Austrian. It is worth noting that Japanese manufacturer IBIDEN, and Korean manufacturer Interflex, were excluded this time although they were included previously. If this release is taken as an indicator of competitiveness, there is not much change for Taiwanese factories. Although Elligton Electronics was removed from the list, AKM has acquired TTM from the United States, helping the number of Chinese plants to persist at three. As a whole, both Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturing plants have seized almost all of the market shares for circuit boards.