A significant part of the formula that brought Apple from a near-bankrupt company to a trillion-dollar one was its relationship with Chinese manufacturing. Through China, Apple developed and sold the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Mac. At the same time, few things could more effectively cripple Apple than problems with manufacturing, and for a long time, all their eggs were in one basket.

However, Apple seems to have got the memo. I suspect disentangling itself from China as its sole manufacturing partner was not easy or trivial, but we are starting to see results on the outside. Recently, we discovered they will be manufacturing MacBooks in Vietnam next year. They are also now manufacturing in India and Indonesia (in addition to China). Apple is increasingly spreading out its manufacturing among multiple countries.

Apple hasn’t said much about this, and I expect they won’t. I hope they aren’t going to stop with the existing countries. There is too much at stake. I’ll be surprised if Apple’s global manufacturing diversification doesn’t look a lot different in five years.