A decade after iPhone's introduction, there's a good reason why the Apple device is still not made in the U.S.. Bloomberg Gadfly's Tim Culpan explains why iPhones are still "assembled in China".
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Boy that nice music really makes you forget about the slave wages, horrible conditions, pushing workers to there emotional and physical limits making then commit suicide so much they put in nettings to stop it, and the fact that 500 thousand of them nearly starve in the low season. iphones arent made in america because workers would have to be treated better.
chrisw
Comments: "We should force Apple to make them in the US!"
YouTube logic at its finest.
blufilmsesa
Thank god. Based on these comments below, I don't have to worry about the future of China.
Dogeboida
My take away from this clip: assembly costs are just 2.2% of an iPhone's manufacturing costs because the production chain seasonally lays off 90% of the assembly workers and the conditions for making that strategy work currently only exist in China.
That system is unsustainable for the long run due to globalization. Because the exploited Chinese worker force will inevitably emancipate to Western levels sooner or later. Even if the chain relocates to by then equally suited regions elsewhere in the world, even while those governments might also actively slow down ("regulate") the local emancipation speed, eventually the locust runs out of equally exploitable places.
Imho, the question for Apple will be whether to structurally invest a substantial part of their current profitability now to gradually transform their business models at the pace they control or to wait until being forced to do so radically with the ever growing risk of sudden demise. Apple has to adapt either way.
bosoerjadi
phones soon will be put together by machines not humans.
Virtual
Wait a minute, Apple only pays $5 for each iPhone assembled?! And that already includes the factory's profits as well as the worker's salary? OMFG Apple
luisch
did no one see the video? they have 1 mill employed at high season and 100k rest of the year, 90% of the workers have short unstable contracts/get kicked, do you want that to be in the US???
colaias
American conservatives:
>pro free market
>want to tell companies where they can manufacture their products
alexbosworth
That's true.If you check the Apple's suppliers list, you'll find lots of Chinese, Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese companies.
windpurple
holy shit! this comment section is absolutely amazing! All of the kindness!! All the politeness!!! All the well-thought arguments and constructive criticism!
This comment section is so great it might be one of those times people actually try to attack me in the replies even though I warn them in advance in the comment itself (happened once already, true story)
danielyahalom
For manufacturing, a lot of people forget about the supply chain. In the US we don't want to mine for precious metals or process them because the work creates a lot of pollutants. The reason Silicon Valley was the heart of the the tech world is because it was cheaper to put a transistor factory right next to the silicon mines. We stopped mining silicon not because it ran out but because it was very dirty. When we stopped the transistor factories moved overseas.
Greenkrieg
High pay, low hours, human rights, the capacity to unionize, no State owned media, less censorship, high standard of living, and lack of specialized infrastructure for making iPhones, without importing parts, combine to make a low profit margin or an expensive product.
legoman
I tried to read the comments, but I'm now convinced no one really watched the video, so why bother.
beitie
i really love it when you didn't include Taiwan as part of China
fithri
so to assemble an iphone cost only 5$ and the final product is almost 800$, , ....that is why I prefer
denzelheden
Title is misleading. Of course anything can be made in the US. Apple chose to made iPhone in China, chose more expensive components and offset that by cheap labor. Apple just found out that most people prefer LCD over OLED. So, they plan to make more iPhone with cheaper screen starting in 2019. if they do the same with other components, they can make the iPhone in the US without replying on paying American workers less. They would sell more phone. IPhone 8 and X are great but the $999 price point turned out to be a deal killer for most people.
shitpostistan
I have no problem with Apple making the Iphone in China. I have a problem with them making the Iphone in China and charging $1000 for it. For $1000 a pop Apple could make the Iphone in the States and make a nice profit. The Bigger problem is Apple does not make the Iphone. Foxcon is the manufacture.
fatboy
I feel the video missed a couple of points. First a number of iPhone parts are actually made in the U.S. The Gorilla Glass Screen in made by Corning, a NY based company out of a factory in Kentucky. A large portion of the chips in the iPhone are made by Samsung, a Korean Company, out of their 14nm factory in Austin TX. Then there is the global footprint. Most if not all of the Rare Earth Metals used in the various electronic components come from Africa. The antennas are made in Germany. The programming and coding is written in Ireland.
centurion
The ringtone at the beginning freaked me out for longer than it should have
RK-epqy
So basically, it was the same reason Bloomberg said it was more than at the start, capital. They just explained some of the PNL of it, or am I too sleep deprived and miss some of it? Because with a $749RRP for the mid-tier 128GB version, and a manufacturing cost of $219.80, and Foxconn paying it's employees $5 daily as of 2010 (after a string of worker suicides in protest brought Foxconn's poor care for workers to spotlight, forcing them to increase wages 25% to this price), that leaves Apple and Foxconn with a capital gain of $524.20 for the average modern iPhone. This seems like they could easily afford the costs and tariffs while keeping huge profit. Or better yet, pay for humane working conditions, so that they do not need these non-suicide pacts that they make workers sign.
