Apple will ‘look at’ manufacturing in Indonesia: Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company will “look at” manufacturing in Indonesia, following a meeting with the country’s President Joko Widodo, at a time when the iPhone giant continues to diversify its supply chain away from China.

“We talked about the president’s desire to see manufacturing in the country and it’s something that we will look at,” Cook told reporters after the meeting.

“I think the investment ability in Indonesia is endless. I think that there’s a lot of great places to invest. And we’re investing. We believe in the country.”

Over the past three years, Apple has been accelerating its push to diversify its manufacturing base beyond China after the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the Cupertino giant’s reliance on the world’s second-largest economy.

Covid disrupted operations and production at Apple’s main iPhone factory in China, operated by its assembly partner Foxconn.

Apple has since sought to broaden its base of manufacturing.

Vietnam has been a key beneficiary, becoming one of Apple’s biggest manufacturing hubs outside of China. Products such as the MacBook, iPad and Apple Watch are being manufactured there. Cook was in Vietnam earlier this week.

Apple has also ramped up its manufacturing in India.

Apple now makes around 1 in 7, or 14%, of its iPhones in India, twice the amount it produced there last year, according to a report from Bloomberg.