Japan Display Inc said on Friday that it would build a new $1.4 billion liquid crystal display (LCD) manufacturing plant, which a source said would supply smartphone screens for Apple Inc.
But it recently reported a rebound to profit, boosted by demand from Apple and Chinese smartphone makers, in stark contrast with Japanese competitor Sharp Corp’s shrinking panel business.
昨夜 BBC の番組 Panorama はこれらの価値観［注：アップルは世界の人権と平等の向上に専心するという価値観］に問題を投げかけた。多くの皆さん同様に、ティム・クックと私［Jeff Williams］はアップルがサプライチェーンの労働者に対し約束を破った、あるいは形はどうあれ顧客を欺いたという指摘には深い怒りを覚える。
Last night, the BBC’s Panorama program called those values into question. Like many of you, Tim and I were deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way.
事実と考え方について皆さんにお話したい。これらはすべて BBC に対しても事前に説明したが、明らかに番組では取り上げなかったものだ。
I’d like to give you facts and perspective, all of which we shared with the BBC in advance, but were clearly missing from their program.
［BBC Panorama Apple’s Broken Promises BBC Documentary 2014 [Workers Life in china Making iphone 6] | YouTube］
［BBC Panorama Apple’s Broken Promises BBC Documentary 2014 [Workers Life in china Making iphone 6] | YouTube］
But there’s one particularly interesting stat that explains why Apple and GTAT even bothered in the first place. Apple is already consuming “one-fourth of the world’s supply of sapphire to cover the iPhone’s camera lens and fingerprint reader,” Wakabayashi writes.
That is impressively high—and about to get a whole lot higher. Sure, Apple could sell 200 million fingerprint-reading iPhones and iPads next year, but such readers are relatively small. Imagine the volumes when the company starts making watches with sapphire displays, and iPhones with sapphire screens.
Daisuke Wakabayashi, the Wall Street Journal: “The Apple-GT marriage was troubled from the start. GT hadn’t mass-produced sapphire before the Apple deal. The New Hampshire company’s first 578-pound cylinder of sapphire, made just days before the companies signed their contract, was flawed and unusable. GT hired hundreds of workers with little oversight; some bored employees were paid overtime to sweep floors repeatedly, while others played hooky.”
真実はこういうことだ。世界で最大の時価総額を誇るアップルはいまやサプライヤーに対して生殺与奪の権を握っているということだ。（かつてジョブズが ATI に激怒したときはほとんど影響がなかった。） アップルのサプライヤーだと分かることには絶対的な価値がある、とアップルサプライヤーの上位 200 社に入るあるある会社は Guardian に対して語る。「アップルが高品質の製造スペックを持っていると認められていることに価値があるのです。したがってアップルとサプライヤー関係があるということはサプライヤーが提供する製品に対してもいい影響をもたらすのです。」
The reality is that Apple, as the most valuable company on Earth by market capitalisation, now has the power to make or break a company through its supplier relationships (unlike Jobs’s pique, which had minimal effect on ATI). Being known as a supplier to it has definite value, one company – which is listed in Apple’s top 200 list – told the Guardian: “The value lies in the fact that Apple is recognised as having a high-quality build spec, so a relationship reflects well on that supplier’s products,” an executive said.
And even if Apple doesn’t name a company as a supplier, its name will still leak out, as one supplier executive explained to the Guardian: “Tech analysts always ‘tear down’ a new model – components are usually stamped with the suppliers’ names inside. Reviews of new phones will mention key components with regard to performance enhancement.”
The executive didn’t want to be named – or to have their company named. He said that isn’t unusual: “None of the top players let their suppliers talk about supplying them – it’s too competitive an industry to allow this.” The Guardian contacted a number of suppliers to Apple; all indicated that they could not talk on the record.
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例外的な GTAT
その点 GTAT だけが例外だった。アップルとの関係を公にしてしまったからだ・・・
In that sense, GTAT was unusual, because its supplier relationship was so public. […]
Are such onerous terms unique to Apple, I asked another of its suppliers? “The leading handset manufacturers all have strong pricing power vis-a-vis their suppliers, but that is universal across most industries,” its executive said. “As a supplier, one needs to find a USP [unique selling point] that the customer values enough to pay for it.”
And would they take a loan from Apple? Are they offered on better or worse terms than a bank’s? “We have good cash flow and a robust balance sheet so do not have need of loans from any customers,” the executive replies, cautiously.
For Apple, meanwhile, the loss of one supplier is not the end of the world. It reverted to Corning for its screens, with Phil Schiller talking of their “ion-strengthened” qualities.
The story of GTAT shows us what might have been: iPhones with sapphire screens, and a successful US-based manufacturing story. It also shone a light on the desperate struggle to implement new technology at a global scale – and the penalties for failure.
Projects with Apple and its suppliers are given secret code names to prevent leaks. The sapphire manufacturing operation run by GT Advanced was known as “Project Onyx.”
