News Briefing According to a report by the Wall Street Journal (December), in the past few weeks, Apple has been speeding up its plan to move part of its manufacturing out of mainland China. As noted by the informed sources, Apple told suppliers that they should assemble their products in Southeast Asia more aggressively, particularly in countries like India and Vietnam. Impact Analysis The Zhengzhou plant of Foxconn is an important production center for iPhones and other Apple products, where the number of its employees has amounted to 300,000. In the past, about 85% of the iPhone Pro series models were made locally, and that is why it is also known as the “iPhone City.” However, as employee protests broke out at the Zhengzhou factory due to dissatisfaction with wages and epidemic prevention restrictions in late November, which has led to serious problems for supply chains, the turmoil is expected to impact the supply of 6 million units of iPhone Pro. As such, the waiting time for customers who would buy Pro models around the world should continue to increase, and with the waiting time currently taking about 37 days, this model is predicted to take the longest time. Now, the factory and local government are working hard to resume full production between the end of December and early January next year. As for the impact on the PCB industry of Taiwan, it will directly affect its performance for the fourth quarter in the short term. Given the context of the world currently being affected by high inflation and high interest rates, the global economy has fallen into austerity and so, insufficient consumer confidence has resulted in a high inventory for major electronic components as well as dwindling new orders. Originally, the PCB industry of Taiwan was still able to maintain its growth momentum as it could rely on the layout of high-end products such as substrates and iPhones and the blessing from exchange rates. However, one of the momentums that used to trigger growth from the Zhengzhou plant for the PCB industry of Taiwan has now been stalled as it was previously hoped to withstand the bleak season, while the outbreak of the incident has further cast a shadow on the operating performance for the fourth quarter this year and even into the first quarter next year. In the long run, anti-epidemic prevention policy in the mainland, along with US-China technology, have both weakened China’s status as a stable “international factory.” In such a way, international customers will no longer merely pursue cost minimization from the supply chain, but also begin to pay attention to the layout planning of risk management, thus helping to speed up the process of pushing the supply chain to relocate themselves from China.