Ming-Chi Kuo on Apple CEO Succession: Ternus Rose to Power Through Chips, Cook Still Needed for External Affairs
On April 21st, renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Tianfeng International Securities stated that the biggest achievement of new Apple CEO John Ternus is leading the transition of Mac from Intel processors to self-developed chips. In the future, Apple will still need the involvement of Chairman Tim Cook for external government affairs.
Caption: Ternus and Cook
Ming-Chi Kuo posted on X that Ternus’s most classic battle in recent years was pushing the Mac to smoothly transition from the x86 architecture Intel processor to the ARM architecture Apple self-developed chip. Successfully integrating software and hardware with the developer ecosystem and achieving commercial success requires extremely high execution and cross-departmental coordination capabilities. Without this battle, there would be no success of today’s MacBook Neo, and the potential advantage of AI devices being ready to go.
He pointed out that the iPhone is the core business that has led Apple’s hardware development for nearly 20 years, but the new CEO did not come from the iPhone system, which means that the board of directors’ evaluation criteria for CEOs are more diverse, and not just who has the most significant achievements.
Ming-Chi Kuo also talked about Ternus’s advantages in the AI era. He said that switching the Mac processor to its own Apple Silicon can be described as a system/platform-level transformation, equivalent to a “brain surgery.” Within Apple, no one has more management experience in this level of transformation than Ternus, and this is precisely the ability Apple needs to move towards a new era of on-device AI.
He revealed that the vast majority of Asian supply chain companies originally believed that Apple’s next CEO would be Jeff Williams, until he retired before changing their views. Cook has created an extremely efficient supply chain management mechanism for Apple. After Ternus becomes the new CEO, in addition to continuing this management system, he is also likely to deepen cooperation with suppliers at the technical level to prepare for the innovation of the next generation of products.
Ming-Chi Kuo said that Cook is one of the few tech leaders who can maintain good communication with both the US and Chinese governments. In the future, Apple’s operations at the geopolitical level may still rely on him for the foreseeable period. Next, if Ternus visits Asia, two key points can be observed: one is the details of the meeting with the Chinese government, and the other is which Asian suppliers he meets with.
In addition, Apple’s largest assembly supplier, Foxconn, announced on April 1st that Chiang Jih-heng, who is responsible for the iPhone business, will take over as the new rotating CEO. Ming-Chi Kuo believes that such a high-level arrangement is not a coincidence in the context of the AI wave, and will also help to continue to maintain or even strengthen the cooperation between the two parties during the transition between Apple’s old and new CEOs.