Pegatron

"So Apple did something totally novel. It purchased hundreds of millions of dollars of machinery, placed it in the factories of its supply partners, and “tagged” it for Apple use only. “They were doing more capital equipment buying than anybody I could see in the world, and yet they were not owning it themselves—they were putting it in other people’s plants,” O’Marah says. From when the iPod launched in 2001 to when the iPhone went on sale in 2007, the “machinery” that Apple owns—equipment used in supplier operations—quadrupled from $245 million to $1.1 billion. Such capital expenditures stunned O’Marah, yet in the next five years that number would soar to $16 billion. The investments allowed its suppliers to operate at a level they’d otherwise be incapable of. And it gave Apple considerable advantages. Not only did Apple disallow the supplier from using the equipment on rival products, but at any point Apple could drive a truck to the vendor and reclaim the machinery. If Apple wanted to reduce orders at one supplier and favor its rival, “Apple would have the machines shipped to another factory—no question, no discussion,” says a manufacturing design engineer. In fact, around 2011 when Foxconn was attempting to exert leverage based on its dominant role assembling iPhones, Apple engineers showed up at a Foxconn assembly line and began unmounting expensive machinery from the floor, in broad daylight, before transferring it over to Pegatron. It wasn’t necessary to shift a large percentage of orders to the Foxconn rival—just making the point was enough to instill order."

"Besides Luxshare, the other three major indigenous contract manufactures making Apple products are BYD Electronic, a major supplier of hardware enclosures and assembler of iPads; Goertek, a maker of AirPods and AirPods Pro; and Wingtech, which manufacturers Mac Mini desktops and MacBooks. These groups collectively reported $6 billion of total revenue in 2015; by 2020 their revenues had quadrupled to $25 billion, and in 2025 their sales are expected to exceed $52 billion. Apple has been instrumental to their success, shifting orders from Taiwanese leaders Foxconn, Wistron, Pegatron, and Quanta. As David Collins, an Asia-based manufacturing consultant, said of the Red Supply Chain in late 2020: “Foxconn’s share price is down roughly 50% from two years ago. They see blood in the water.”"