Will India and Vietnam overtake China as iPhone manufacturing hubs? Leading Apple suppliers, including Foxconn and Pegatron, are shifting their focus to assembly and packaging of Apple products outside of China, as they look to grow resilient amid a fractured global supply chain, according to a Counterpoint Research analysis cited by Bloomberg. Vietnam alone has attracted 21 Apple suppliers to operate there, the report says, while India has grown smartphone manufacturing by 16% in 2Q 2022. Apple has also made this easier for suppliers by making its product design more modular and transferable, the report noted. At this rate, the Counterpoint analysts expect leading partner Hon Hai Precision Industry to move as much as 30% of its capacity to India, Vietnam and Brazil.

This has been in the making for some time: Employees at Foxconn’s largest iPhone factory in China clashed last month with police during protests over the 200k-worker plant’s handling of a covid outbreak, leading Apple to begin ramping up plans to move some of its production out of the country.

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Now that the World Cup is over, Qatar has a lot of tourism + real estate infrastructure to put to use: Football fans exited Qatar en masse following yesterday’s final, leaving empty some of the USD 300 bn-worth of real estate and tourism infrastructure investments the country poured into preparations for the sporting event, Bloomberg reports, citing industry and investment players. These industries — whose capacities were built up in excess of their current demand outside of the World Cup — may end up needing a helping hand from the government until their massive growth is organically absorbed into the country’s economy. “The capacity that got created for this mega scale event will take time to get absorbed, resulting in an economic slowdown or downturn,” Qatar Ins. Company’s chief investment officer said. Several projects remained unfinished in the lead up to the tournament, and have pushed their opening dates. New hotels would have been able to bring in revenues equivalent to 15% of their construction costs had they opened in the middle of the tournament.

Qatar’s population is expected to fall in 2023, as several people that were working on World Cup-related projects leave the country. A 2020 census revealed that about half of the population was made up of low-wage workers who lived in work camps. Qatar is expecting to receive more tourists in upcoming years, targeting 6mn visitors by 2030, triple the number of visitors in 2019. Hotel occupancy rates stood at below 60% now 14-15k new rooms have been opened, further crowding the market.