Apple Suspends Kersen Technology's License Due to Quality Issues, Transfers Orders
TapTechNews September 23rd news, according to Taiwan media DigiTimes' report on September 19th, due to 'quality issues', Apple has suspended the production license of Kunshan Kersen Technology, the supplier of MacBook Air bearings, and transferred the orders to other suppliers until the end of this year.
The orders have been transferred to Amphenol, Shin Zu Shing and Jarllytec, etc. The related suppliers are tight-lipped, but some insiders also tell the truth.
It is reported that Apple suspended production after discovering in August that the defect rate of bearings supplied by Kersen Technology was relatively high. The defective bearings are mainly used in the previous-generation MacBook Air models, not the latest models, and the MacBook Air models with defective bearings have not entered the market.
Industry insiders pointed out that these defects existed from the very beginning, but Apple only discovered them in the subsequent destructive tests. The subsequent full-batch inspection showed a high defect rate. Fortunately, no problem products have flowed into the market. However, the bearing defects usually take one to two years to be discovered by consumers. It is not clear which part of the bearing is specifically referred to.
The report also mentioned that among the transferred orders, the US manufacturer Amphenol got the most transferred orders, followed by Taiwan-based bearing giant Shin Zu Shing, which also boosted the shipments of Shin Zu Shing in July-August, while Jarllytec didn't increase much due to the limited capacity of its Taipei factory.
Kersen Technology became famous by snatching orders at low prices and entered the supply chain of Apple laptop hinges 5 to 6 years ago. The impact of this incident on the subsequent supply chain inspection and order allocation remains to be seen. TapTechNews noticed from the report that in addition to snatching Apple's orders, Kersen Technology has also snatched some orders of Huawei's foldable phone bearings in recent years. The current main suppliers of Huawei's foldable phone bearings are Foxda and Jarllytec, and Kersen Technology's order share is still relatively low due to yield issues, but it has attracted market attention.