Jabil

"SCI was joined by the likes of Solectron, Flextronics, Celestica, and Jabil—all North America–based contract manufacturers who collectively killed off the entire concept of the do-it-yourself, vertically integrated computer company."

"But the “strictly business” narrative fails to grasp the nexus between supply chains and local politics. As Taiwanese scholar Wu Jieh-min argues, the role of the Chinese state “is exceedingly understated” in most research. The “underpoliticized” narrative, he writes, overlooks how “the Chinese government invested capital and selectively nurtured” certain industries, including telecommunications and cellphones. Such help allowed local suppliers to purchase their way into Apple’s supply chain. Luxshare, for instance, got into iPhone assembly after buying two China-based subsidiaries of Wistron, a Taiwanese rival, for $472 million, in July 2020. The following year, BYD Electronic spent $2.2 billion to purchase the Chengdu- and Wuxi-based electronics manufacturing facilities of Jabil, a US contract manufacturer that had been supplying Apple for fifteen years. And with cheap access to capital, they could acquire workers from Foxconn and other suppliers who already had Apple experience. These tactics have been so successful that they’ve helped to drive a shift of geopolitical proportions. According to Apple insiders, 100 percent of final assembly, test, and pack out of Apple hardware was performed by Taiwanese companies in 2012; in the years since, that percentage has fallen below 50 percent—reflecting a staggering shift toward Chinese suppliers that has made Apple hugely popular in government circles."