Apple is in talks with suppliers to make MacBooks in Thailand as part of the company’s efforts to expand its manufacturing presence beyond China, Nikkei news report said.
Apple’s revenue from Mac sales plummeted to $7.735 billion in the December quarter of 2022 as compared with $10.852 billion in the same quarter in 2021. Apple does not reveal the number of MacBooks sold.
Suppliers who are participating in these talks have existing manufacturing complexes in Thailand for other clients, and are discussing possible assembly and production of components and modules for Apple’s MacBooks.
Apple has also been mass-producing its Apple Watch in Thailand for more than a year.
Apple and its key suppliers have been shifting production away from China, where strict COVID-19 curbs disrupted Foxconn’s biggest iPhone factory last year.
Separately, Bloomberg News reported Apple has tripled its production of iPhones in India, assembling over $7 billion worth of smartphones in the country in the last fiscal year. The tech giant manufactures almost 7 percent of its iPhones in India, up from 1 percent in 2021.
In March, Foxconn announced its plans to increase investments outside of China.
Meanwhile, Pegatron, another supplier to Apple, is in talks to establish a second factory in India as part of its efforts to diversify production away from China.