(Yicai) Oct. 19 -- Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, applauded technology upgrades after visiting a plant of Luxshare Precision Industry, the sole assembler of the upcoming Vision Pro mixed-reality headset, during his second visit to China this year amid supply chain reassessment and iPhone 15 sales pressures.

"We have been partnering with Luxshare-ICT for more than a decade, and they are now making some of our most advanced products including the carbon neutral Apple Watch lineup and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. And they will become carbon neutral for their Apple production by 2030," Cook said on his personal Weibo account.

Cook visited Luxshare's factory in Zhejiang province yesterday after arriving in China on Oct. 16. The CEO of the California-headquartered tech giant also went to Chengdu and Ya’an in Sichuan province. He is in Beijing today and will leave tomorrow.

The Dongguan-based electronics manufacturer is assembling Apple Vision Pro which is expected to become Apple's first mixed-reality product to bring images, movies, and video calls to life with a predicted launch early next year in the United States..

China is a significant production hub and marketplace for Apple and Cook's visit implies Apple wants to get closer to the Chinese market, analyst said. Most of the company's suppliers are located in the Asian country and the same is true for the majority of its 1.5 million employees, according to last year's earnings report. But the firm is moving parts of its supply chain to other regions and India could be one of the winners, per analysts, including those from Morgan Stanley.

The CEO highlighted technological progress during his visit. Automation can generate repeatable and predictable production procedures, which can greatly enhance product quality, Cook said regarding Luxshare's operations.

Cook said that the production and inspection processes he saw were quite complex. Two years ago, the demand for labor was still quite high but now automation can fulfill quality requirements. Besides Luxshare, other Chinese Apple suppliers are upgrading production with more robots to increase efficiency.

Luxshare was once a company with just 50 to 100 employees, and now the number has surged to 250,000 people, Cook said, adding that this is a win-win result achieved through many people’s efforts.

The effect of the visit remains to be seen in iPhone sales. Sales of iPhone 15 were almost 5 percent lower in China than those of iPhone 14 during the first 17 days after launch, according to a report by Counterpoint Research.

Editor: Emmi Laine