Why the mad migration of parts for your iPhone matters - FT.com

Why the mad migration of parts for your iPhone matters - FT.com:

...One should imagine, he said, drilling 300,000 holes into a grain of Japanese rice, flipping it over and then doing the same on the other side.The point is that it’s not easy to make sophisticated components. The barriers to entry are high. Specialisation means that, once manufacturing has gone to Asia, it is very hard for US or European manufacturers to claw back...

Many Asian manufacturers simply make components. But some that supply parts to their branded competitors aspire to inventing the next breakthrough device. It’s certainly not easy. But so long as Asian companies are making many of the components inside everything we use, even Apple cannot relax.