Sources: Apple freezes its plans to use YMTC memory chips in its products, including iPhones, following the latest US export controls on China's tech sector
Company previously planned to put Chinese-made memory in some iPhones
The export controls turn a prospective sourcing option into a supply-chain constraint for Apple while cutting YMTC off from a high-profile customer opportunity.
First-order effects
Apple must keep its planned iPhone and other-product memory sourcing outside YMTC, narrowing the diversification path it had been evaluating.
YMTC loses Apple as a prospective buyer just as its access to US technology is under increased pressure.
Second-order effects
Apple's existing and alternative memory suppliers gain leverage in negotiations because the company can no longer add YMTC as a credible source.
The decision reinforces the commercial impact of US controls beyond chipmaking equipment: they shape which Chinese suppliers global device makers can qualify for products.
Third-order effects
If comparable controls persist, memory supply chains will divide more sharply between Chinese producers constrained in US-linked technology and suppliers eligible for global-device supply chains.
Apple's sourcing choices show that geopolitical compliance can override diversification goals, making memory procurement a more contracted and policy-sensitive market.
The trend: Export controls are increasingly determining which semiconductor suppliers multinational device makers can use, not merely what technology those suppliers can obtain.
Allowing CCP-controlled YMTC into iPhones would have put our national security at serious risk and made us more reliant on China. I'm glad that Apple is dropping YMTC, as I urged last month, but they should not have considered YMTC in the first place. https://asia.nikkei.com/...
An escalating trade war with China will deepen inflation as companies take more expensive paths to getting components AND addressable markets of multiple industries shrinks causing price increases to address shortfalls. Globalization's end will hurt a lot https://asia.nikkei.com/…
Yet another decoupling sign. Biden is serious about chips and without advanced chips, China has become a very bad place to buy a lot of things. https://asia.nikkei.com/...
Apple had been considering eventually purchasing up to 40% of the NAND flash memory needed for all iPhones from 🇨🇳 government-subsidized YMTC, but now it has put on hold plans to use YMTC's memory chips in its products. https://asia.nikkei.com/...
Better not do anything you will regret. Apple freezes plan to use China's YMTC chips amid political pressure Company previously planned to put Chinese-made memory in some iPhones https://asia.nikkei.com/...
Apple had already completed the monthslong process to certify YMTC's 128-layer 3D NAND flash memory for use in iPhones when the U.S. government unveiled the tighter export restrictions against China early this month, multiple sources said. https://asia.nikkei.com/...