Apple iPhone 12: Pride vs. Power

Apple iPhone 12: Pride vs. Power In an investigative piece from Nikkei Asia, journalists broke down the Apple iPhone 12 into its separate components, assigning dollar value and determining the origin country of each component. They found that 26.8% of the value of components in an Apple iPhone 12 comes from Korea; 21.9% from the United States; the little island of Taiwan contributed 11.1%; and Japan contributed 13.6%. This matters because every brand or product inherently has national and regional pride attached to it. Americans are rightly proud that Steve Jobs developed the iPhone—with a team of people reporting under him—in California, USA. While the iPhone was developed in the US, a large chunk of its components come from other countries. For every Apple iPhone 12 bought, a large percentage of that money is not going to Apple—it's going to a group of component manufacturers in Korea, Taiwan, Japan and many other countries. The insight is a lot deeper than that. Countries that supply for Apple iPhone 12 are building a reservoir of cash, and they want to do something with it. Most likely, they’ll start building their own branded products. We saw this with Taiwan in the 80s and 90s. For a long…