Zhang Zhongmou, who will hand over the bar, said: “This is a new challenge and it is a challenge that I have not faced in the past. However, my successor will face this risk.” “What will they do? I don’t know.” TSMC Is the main supplier of apple iPhone processor chip.
Before Zhang Zhongmou made the above remarks, the Trump administration in the United States has asked China to reduce the U.S. surplus of 337 billion U.S. dollars by 2020 billion U.S. dollars by 2020 and cut subsidies for emerging industries. The U.S. and China have faced a threat of tariffs for several weeks. Rising trend.
Although TSMC’s core processor chips for Apple’s iPhone are mostly manufactured in factories in Taiwan, Zhang Zhongmou’s concerns are that if the United States increases tariffs, the broader mobile phone supply chain will be affected. TSMC’s annual revenue of US$33 billion, About half are from mobile devices.
He also commented on the impact of the US-China full-scale trade war on deep integration into global supply chain companies. He said: “A large number of end products are assembled in mainland China, so trade disputes between the US and China may also affect us.”
Oliver Cox, a portfolio manager at the Morgan Pacific Funding Technology Fund, said that although the new tariffs in the United States may impose cost pressures on Apple in the short term, he does not believe there is a long-term impact. Apple and its supply chain are "adapting to change." And have demonstrated high flexibility in terms of cost and low cost."
However, Zhang Zhongmou worried that the confrontation between Washington and Beijing may be worse than the US-Japan trade war he experienced in the 1970s. This was a trade dispute he had experienced at the time when Texas Instruments led a semiconductor division. Say: "We have resolved peacefully, and both the United States and Japan are satisfied." "This time it may not be so friendly. It does not seem so friendly at the moment."
Iris Pang, an economist at Greater China in ING, said that the levy of new tariffs on electronics products in mainland China will increase the cost of electronic components shipped from the mainland to the United States. "The impact on the supply chain will then increase. Very complicated".
Sam Kao of Yuanda Securities said that Apple suppliers without major production bases outside mainland China will face the highest risk. He listed electronics manufacturers that will be under pressure due to US-China trade disputes, including Hon Hai and Heshuo. , Wistron and other companies.
Analysts at Moodys, an international assessment agency, said that some technology-related manufacturers in mainland China will be subject to the "direct shock" of the new U.S. tariffs, but if they only review this impact, they will "undervalue" China. The influence of the mainland economy.