Apple Supply Chain: Apple Supply Chain, Competition Discussed

Published on April 19, 2013 at 1:55 pm by Chris Bibey in News

Apple Supply Chain: On the surface, many people look at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) devices and fall in love. They like everything about their iPhone, iPad, Mac or other product. That being said, many of these same people fail to realize that there is a lot going on behind the scenes. And not necessarily at Apple headquarters.

A Leading Company Cheaper Than 90% Of Blue Chips... And It Recently Bounced 12% It is hard to imagine just how many companies rely on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to keep their business running. This is definitely true when you look at the company’s supply chain. There are manufacturers throughout the process that spend a considerable amount of time working on products for the Cupertino-based company.

While this is a good thing for these companies, it can turn bad soon enough if Apple begins to struggle.

Right now, this appears to be the case.

Here is an article we published on this subject yesterday: When Apple Inc. (AAPL) Struggles, Others Deal With Pain Too

It appears that we were not the only ones talking about this problem, as Bloomberg TV aired an interview with Jon Erlichamn discussing more of the same.

In the segment, Erlichamn discusses recent sales as well as where Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Tim Cook stands on the subject:

“When he (Cook) had the shareholder meeting, one of the first things he said, you know, is all I can tell you is we are focused on products and making the best products. But I think investors are looking at the Apple story, they know that Samsung is about to come out with its Galaxy S4, that starts selling next week, and that will be a lot of competition for Apple.”

Erlichamn then added the following:

“We haven’t heard anything from the company on what the next big thing is, next big product will be, and that is always a gauge for people on where the next leg of revenue comes from.”

He finished up with a brief discussion on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s supply chain side of things:

“And just one final thing, obviously, the other part of the stock slide, is that yesterday a key supplier of audio chips to the company came out and said its outlook is not looking very good. People try to determine maybe that means there is less demand from Apple for parts to make iPhones, but again its kind of tea leaves until we see Apple’s report next week.”

As Erlichamn said, it is hard to say right now what is going on and whether or not things are as bad as they look. We will get a better idea on Tuesday on what this means to suppliers, and how the near term future is shaping up.

On the next page, take a look at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s supply chain from a year ago to see how things have changed: