Apple supplier Pegatron is looking to Vietnam as a location to possibly carry out some of its manufacturing work.
The move would help Pegatron, one of Apple’s biggest suppliers, diversify beyond its current home in China.
According to a report from Bloomberg, Pegatron wants to build a brand new facility in the north of Vietnam. The company also rented a facility in the northern city of Haiphong.
Apple manufacturers like Foxconn already expanded production to places like India. Now Pegatron follows Foxconn, Wistron, AirPods-maker GoerTek and assemblers Compal Electronics and Luxshare Precision in embracing manufacturing in Vietnam.
“Vietnam’s enhanced vocational training has helped boost the quality of its pool of workers to close to China’s level,” Roy Lee, a researcher at the Taipei-based Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, told Bloomberg. Lee also pointed out that Vietnam’s government is trying to make it easier for companies to invest in the country.
Pegatron will not, at least initially, make iPhones at its Vietnam factories. However, this move is absolutely in line with a previous request made by Cupertino. Last year, Apple reportedly asked its main suppliers to explore shifting production from China to Southeast Asia. This came in response to the burgeoning trade war between China and the United States. While that has settled down somewhat in recent months, not being as reliant on China for manufacturing is good for companies like Apple.
Previously, Pegatron began assembling Apple’s MacBook and iPad devices using a local manufacturer in Batam, Indonesia.
Source: Bloomberg
