News briefing

 

According to reports by Nihon Keizai Shimbun (abbreviated as Nikkei) citing those informed and familiar with the issue, Apple is currently negotiating with suppliers set up with parks in Thailand to produce MacBook laptops locally.

 

Impact analysis

 

To lessen supply chain risks, meet global demand, and promote a diversification strategy, Apple has been expanding its production capacity outside mainland China in recent years, with Vietnam being the most well-known one and, at this stage, the second largest production base for Apple products worldwide. Thailand is also an important automobile production center in Southeast Asia and has advantages compared with Vietnam’s objective conditions. However, as the local automobile industry has long been established in the country, the relevant infrastructure is quite advanced to a certain extent, and we can, especially in several of the special economic zones programmed by the government, find many upstream and downstream supply chains. Even more, a small number of Apple products have been mass-produced in Thailand. In other words, there may be historical factors and reasons for its respective development of diverse application products in Thailand and Vietnam, but, in theory, it won’t be too difficult, at this point for Thailand to develop a certain scale of industrial chains for consumer products due to the maturity of supply chains already being in existence.

 

Regarding the perspective of supply chain clustering, it’s understandable that, due to Apple’s preference, the first-tier assembly plants have relocated a greater proportion of production capacity to Vietnam in the past. But if we look from the viewpoint of the supply chain taken from further upstream, as well as the larger scope, the number of working manufacturing factories in Thailand has increased from 16 to 22 as per the data of the company from 2019 to 2022, slightly more than those in Vietnam - from 22 to 27. Although the difference is still within the margin of error due to the small size of the statistical population, we can, at least, confirm that Apple is silently deploying in Thailand, and even, with persistent steps, in Malaysia and Singapore. In terms of public information, what is revealed is not as visible as those in Vietnam. On the other hand, even if the news this time e.g., NB products, was not confirmed directly from any official external source or statement, Thailand is not inferior to Vietnam in terms of objective conditions for production. As such, it will merely lie in the hands of decision-makers from the terminal brands to determine if Vietnam has the chance to become the next major manufacturing hub of consumer products. In other words, if there’s a good chance of following the Vietnam or India model, the relocation of the assembly plant will not be a problem. If the decision-makers are willing to make a clarion call and put forth the demand, the deliberation time or learning curve required for the overall industry to scale up would be a lot shorter than in Vietnam. It would be great news and a windfall for the Taiwanese PCB manufacturers who have already gained great momentum in Thailand.