"Apple has a popular product, but it can't deliver it to customers. What's worse?" This is the criticism of the media when former Apple CEO Michael Spindler was dismissed in 1996 because of related problems including supply chain. Now, the same situation has reappeared on iphone13 products. Due to the shortage of some parts, Apple executives admitted that they made $6 billion less in the first quarter of 2022 (September December 2021). Recently, Apple's market value exceeded $3 trillion for the first time, but the troubles in the supply chain made CEO Tim Cook really unhappy. Supply chain triggered iphone13 sales crisis For nearly 10 years, Apple will choose to release the latest iPhone Series in early September. This time point can not only win a "good start" for the operating revenue in the first quarter of the new fiscal year, but also make full use of the first half of the year to polish the parts of new models with suppliers. Based on Apple's strong performance in recent years, on the basis of about 195 million iPhone shipments in 2020, Guo Mingyu, an analyst at Tianfeng securities who has long tracked the trend of Apple's brand, predicts that iPhone shipments will reach 230 million to 240 million in 2021. Analysts also have high hopes for the latest model iphone13 Series in 2021. Both Tianfeng securities and strategy analytics predict that the shipment volume of iphone13 series mobile phones will reach 90 million in 2021, exceeding 80 million in iphone12. However, the shortage of some parts in the supply chain has added uncertainty to the goal of "90 million iphone13 series". From September to October 2021, it is difficult to find a series of iphone13 machines. According to the statistics of analysis institutions, the waiting time of iphone13 series is about 4 weeks, and the shortage of iphone13 pro and pro Max is more serious, waiting 1 ~ 2 weeks longer than iphone13 models. The reservation market of iphone13 has set the longest waiting time for apple from order to delivery. The impact of supply chain shortage on Apple's shipment is huge. Foxconn, the iPhone assembly plant, became the first company to feel the headwind in Apple's supply chain. The number of iPhones assembled by Foxconn accounts for about 60% of the global total. In order to prepare for the production of iphone13 pro, Foxconn opened the recruitment mode in August 2021. Wang Xue, deputy general manager of Foxconn Zhengzhou factory, told the media: "Foxconn needs to recruit 200000 additional workers to meet the production demand before the end of September." At the same time, the maximum bonus for new employees in recent years will be increased to 10.2 million yuan. It is embarrassing that due to the shortage of parts, Zhengzhou Foxconn factory fell into the dilemma of "a clever woman can't cook without rice". In 2021, Foxconn Zhengzhou factory unexpectedly took a rare five-day holiday on the national day. "We estimate the negative impact of supply constraints to be about $6 billion." At the earnings conference call in October 2021, cook also responded positively to the problem of supply chain restrictions. He admitted that semiconductor shortage and chip manufacturing interruption often occur in Southeast Asia due to epidemic restrictions. According to the 2020 supplier list, the statistics of the reporters found that apple supply chain enterprises had more than 90 factories in Southeast Asia, ranking only behind Chinese mainland (164), they are located in Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, India and other places. In 2021, the spread of the epidemic had a serious impact on the normal operation of the manufacturing industry in Southeast Asian countries, affecting many factories of Apple suppliers, which directly led to the failure to produce or transport some parts of the apple supply chain. In fact, Apple has also made some compromises to solve the shortage of iphone13 series. In order to stabilize the production of iphone13, apple sacrificed the production capacity of iPad products. Specifically, apple called the parts of iPad and old iPhone to the iphone13 series production line, which affected the iPad production capacity to 50%. Cook's elaborate supply chain Empire The novel coronavirus pneumonia has seriously affected the mature consumer electronics supply chain system that has been running for several years, and even the apple with the top supply chain management capability can not be independent. Such a supply chain crisis has hardly happened since cook entered apple. After entering apple in 1998, cook carried out a drastic reform of the supply chain - increasing the proportion of parts outsourcing, streamlining suppliers, and establishing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. After the reform, Apple's supply chain has made great progress - seven months after cook joined apple, he shortened the inventory period of products from 30 days to 6 days, and shortened 7 days to 2 days in 1999. Supply chain experts once commented that after Apple occupied the golden ends of product design and retail of electronic products, it imported the IT systems of parts suppliers, assembly plants, logistics and retailers into the "heavenly eye" ERP system, taking the lead. Apple's operation team can detect the operation of the whole supply chain with the help of "heavenly eye". With the help of massive data, the operation team can send order demand to outsourcing factories based on the specific sales situation of each week and the accurate inventory statistics of retail channels. The improvement of Apple's supply chain efficiency is due to cook's rich supply chain management ability accumulated after 12 years of working in IBM. The novel coronavirus pneumonia, which is facing the "supply chain management" aura, has made the new supply chain crisis triggered by the new crown pneumonia epidemic become a noticeable phenomenon. Apple was promoted to the "supply chain master" after winning the top 25 of the supply chain selected by market organization Gartner for seven consecutive years. Almost every year, Apple releases the list of top 200 suppliers in the previous fiscal year (98% of the parts and materials of Apple products come from these 200 enterprises), which has also become an important barometer to gain insight into the layout trend of the global electronic information supply chain. By looking up the latest version of the Top200 supplier list (fiscal year 2020), the reporter found that in the first 200 suppliers, there were 96 Chinese manufacturers, including 48 Chinese mainland enterprises, mainly in China's precision components and material supply modules, and the number of enterprises in the US, Japan and Korea ranked third to 5. In the 2020 financial year, Top200 suppliers list has 11 Chinese mainland manufacturers, including the victory precision, Tianma microelectronics, Jingyan technology, electronics, innovation, long precision, and new technology. This result is interpreted by the outside world as that Apple gives more trust to China's relatively stable production environment under the epidemic. IPhone production is not affected by the shortage of high-end chips The shortage of chips and the frequent occurrence of epidemic restrictions in Southeast Asia are the two reasons for the limited supply chain summarized by cook. Apple's limited production of iphone13 is not a shortage of high-end process chips. Its core A15 chip foundries in Taiwan, China, are affected by the epidemic. This has also been confirmed by cook himself. Cook said that there are challenges in the supply of low-end chips, but it does not involve the core processor in the flagship mobile phone. Teng ran, executive deputy general manager of CCID Consulting integrated circuit research center, analyzed: "apple is the largest customer of TSMC. It is relatively guaranteed in the supply of processor chips. Chip manufacturers in other fields are using chips, which does not involve giving priority to apple." Huang Yuxuan, an analyst at trendforce Jibang consulting, said earlier that PMIC (power management chip), wireless charging chip and camera module are key parts affecting the production of iphone13. Industry chain insiders speculate that the insufficient chip delivery of suppliers Broadcom and Texas Instruments has seriously affected the delivery time of Apple products. After dismantling iphone13 products, some institutions found that the iPhone 13 series adopted the front-end module of Broadcom afem-8215 and the wireless charging interface chip of Broadcom bcm59365, as well as the display power management IC, flash LED driver, array driver and repeater from Texas Instruments. Teng ran explained that the Broadcom chip is used in the RF front section and is responsible for mobile phone communication functions. The power management chip and driver chip of Texas Instruments are mainly responsible for power management and display driver. "PMIC is the more obvious category in the semiconductor shortage tide in 2021." Trendforce Jibang consulting said that due to factors such as full capacity and shortage of raw materials, the delivery time of chips for consumer electronics has been extended to 12 ~ 26 weeks. Jibang consulting predicts that with TI's new plant rfab2 about to be put into operation, the production capacity shortage of PMIC may be alleviated in the second half of 2022. Southeast Asia plays an important role in the later process of semiconductor manufacturing, such as packaging and testing. The epidemic has obviously disrupted the rhythm of production and manufacturing in Southeast Asia. Taking Malaysia as an example, as one of the world's top seven semiconductor product exporters, many apple supply chain enterprises choose Malaysia as the origin of packaging and testing. In order to control the further spread of the epidemic, Malaysia was completely blocked in June 2021, some factories were forced to close, and the air and shipping of chip exports were also forced to stop, which seriously affected the supply capacity of chip parts. Vietnam has become a card point for camera module supply Among many parts, camera module is another category out of stock this time. The main assembly and production location of this category is Vietnam. In 2021, the novel coronavirus pneumonia severely hit Vietnam's manufacturing industry, and millions of Vietnamese workers were afraid of the outbreak of the epidemic. This caused a manufacturing crisis in Vietnam, which in turn affected international brands such as apple and Nike. Originally, LG Innotek, sharp and oufeiguang were the "iron triangle" that supplied camera modules for apple. Taking the camera module of iphone12 series products as an example, LG Innotek is responsible for the assembly and production of 100% camera modules of iphone12 pro and 12 Pro Max models. Sharp and oufeiguang supply iphone12 and iPhone 12 mini camera modules, of which sharp accounts for more than 60%. In March 2021, oufeiguang officially announced the end of cooperation with apple, leaving only LG Innotek and sharp as Apple's camera module suppliers. In the case of tight production capacity, the "shutdown and return tide" in Vietnam, where iphone13 camera module assembly is produced, is undoubtedly worse for apple, which has just adjusted its suppliers. Statistics show that as of September 2021, more than 40000 factories in Vietnam have shut down, and 12071 factories in Ho Chi Minh City alone have suspended business, an increase of 25.7% compared with last year, most of which are electronic and mobile phone manufacturers. Supply chain manufacturers revealed that according to the management of Apple's new mobile phone products sold in September, upstream module manufacturers have begun to produce relevant accessories according to orders since May. The delayed delivery of parts caused by the closure of factories in Vietnam due to the epidemic will directly affect the delivery time of iPhone. "The current situation is really not optimistic about the supply of camera modules for apple." Zhou Dan, a senior analyst at GfK, explained that both the standard version and mini version of iphone13 are equipped with dual cameras this year, so the capacity demand of the whole module has increased. At present, the main suppliers of Apple's camera modules have been reduced from three to two (oufeiguang is out), and sharp's Vietnam factory has also reduced production due to the epidemic. The supply pressure is mostly on LG Innotek, and the dominance of LG Innotek is not conducive to Apple's diversified suppliers. In November 2021, after completing the acquisition of Guangzhou delta Image Technology Co., Ltd. of Oufei photon company, Wentai technology is expected to replace Oufei light as the lens module supplier in the mainland and re form a new "iron triangle". Supply chain problems may lead to "domino effect" The epidemic has caused trouble in Apple's supply chain and reflected the evolution of the global consumer electronics supply chain.