The Cupertino giant, Apple, decided to suspend its plans to start using memory chips from the Chinese company Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) in its iPhone.
The decision came after the United States tightened control of the products that come from the Asian giant’s technology companies.
The news was published this Monday, October 17, by the Japanese newspaper Nikkei and then reproduced by the most important financial and technological media in the world.
Apple had planned to start using NAND flash memory chips, made by YMTC with funding from the Chinese state, but, according to Nikkei, everything has been left in stand by.
Initially, the plan was for the chips to be used only for iPhones sold in the Chinese market, but later the idea was extended to a good part of those made in China, including those that are exported.
According to Nikkei, the goal was to get 40% of all iPhones to include YMTC chips.
Apple changes plans with its YMTC chips
The problem is that in early October, the US added China’s leading memory chip maker, YMTC, and 25 other Chinese companies to a list of firms that Washington officials have been unable to inspect. generating an increase in tension between the two nations.
YMTC is also being investigated by the United States Department of Commerce to find out if it violated export controls by selling chips to Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company included in the so-called “blacklist” that was drawn up during the time of Donald Trump in the House. White.
The expansion of export controls from China to the rest of the world is part of the Biden administration’s strategy to try to curb Beijing’s technological and military advance cutting off the sale of some of the chips made in China by others “made in USA”.
It’s not easy for Apple to ditch China when it comes to phone production.
According to Bloomberg IntelligenceIt would take about eight years to move just 10 percent of Apple’s production capacity out of China. where about 98 percent of the company’s iPhones are made.
With China accounting for 70 percent of global smartphone manufacturing and major Chinese suppliers accounting for nearly half of global shipments, the region has a very well-developed supply chain that will be difficult to replicate and one that Apple stands to lose. access if you move to other countries.
Now read:
iPhone 14 confuses roller coasters with road accidents and the police are already fed up
This is how Apple employees receive the first iPhone 14 buyers
Apple could make many more iPhones in India than expected