Media: Apple froze plans to use the chips of the Chinese company YMTC

MOSCOW, 17 Oct — PRIME. Apple Inc has froze plans to use memory chips from China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC) in its products after Washington imposed tighter export controls on Chinese tech companies. This was reported on Monday by the Nikkei newspaper.

Apple originally planned to start using NAND flash memory chips from YMTC, which is financially backed by the Chinese authorities, as early as this year, the Nikkei said, citing sources. It was originally planned that the chips would only be used for iPhones sold in the Chinese market.

According to the newspaper, the company was considering purchasing up to 40% of the chips needed for the iPhone from YMTC.

Analysts believe that YMTC is among the smaller companies supplying memory chips to Apple, and the move will have little to no impact on the tech giant.

However, more importantly, it limits Apple’s ability to further diversify its supplier base by leveraging domestic Chinese players and improving its cost profile over time, according to CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino.

Apple is moving more and more production of products like Airpods and new iPhones to Vietnam and India.

Last week, the United States added Chinese memory chip maker YMTC and 30 other Chinese companies to a list of entities that US officials could not verify, raising tensions with Beijing. A 60-day countdown has been launched, following which much tougher sanctions could be introduced.

An Apple spokesperson did not respond to a Reuters request for comment at the time of writing, and YMTC declined to comment.