Supply Chain behind Apple iPhone

 Hello Everyone I am Dharunanand R, pursuing my final year MBA from Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore. In this blog I am going to share the supply chain behind Apple iPhone 

There is no doubt that Apple delivering millions of iPhones in the first week of launch is completely insane and no other company receives this amount of orders that Apple receives and there is no company that delivers millions of anything in the time span of one week so this lands up with the question of how does Apple shipped 37 million units of the iPhone 11 series. To do this Apple has a vast and largely logistics network to bring the materials needed to make the iPhone in China and then eventually ship the thing out to people to unbox than use the process starts with the components coming from 43 countries, although does have suppliers from all around the world for its raw materials and rare earth materials to make the iPhone.

80% of the global rare earths supply which has an integral part in iPhone comes from China. Most people think that when they make a product for instance the iPhone the raw material goes into the factory and ready-made iPhones come out the iPhone is not a mainly a china made product. iPhone is no exception it's displays are made in Vietnam, the batteries are made in China the camera and rear-facing cameras made by Sony in Japan and Semiconductor is designed and made in Philippines. For a single product of the iPhone like the a-13 chip, which has parts made from all over the world the design team for it is in Israel but the manufactured in Taiwan and in the end all the stuff has to come to final assembly in China where all parts of the iPhone like the processor screen and the sensors have to be assembled into one iPhone which the consumer will unbox .

Apple normally starts production of its phones in early June or May and continues its production until they have the right amount but Apple does not send the iPhones as soon as they're made - everywhere the iPhones will rest in China until right before launch when they are shipped iPhones are shipped to distribution centers around the world including Australia China the Czech Republic Japan Singapore and the UK .

The question here is that Apple choose Planes for shipping instead of Cargo, The reason is that, Apple needs to send iPhones fast to make sure that they are out there so people can buy them. Number two Apple can because a phone is small and you can fit lots of iPhones on  plane and adding the high price of the  iPhone it makes economical . Now with the introduction of iPhone 12, the box is 40% smaller, which makes way for more economical shipping process.

When the iPhone goes on sale Apple can't relax because it has to monitor which configurations are selling the most and make sure there's no pile of iPhones at the store because the design of the Apple Store has little storage products and a lot more space dedicated customers this means an Apple has to make sure that they do not have too much supply and in the end it has to come perfectly once the hype has died down.

Apple still cannot relax because it has to get ready for next year in this time employees of the logistic team talked of ways that they could improve on next year to make sure that the system gets better every year even for one of the best logistics networks on the planet there's always room for improvement