Apple Wants to Triple iPhone Production in India, Claims Report

[SnappleRumors]

And see that right there is the myth. The actual truth is that large mega corporations like Apple overcharge for its products regardless of where they are built. Apple is worth $1 trillion dollars. Why are their phones so expensive? So that they can continue to hoard absurd amounts of wealth and pay top executives (eg not the people inventing anything) ridiculous bonuses.

They could move production into the west and cut the price of the iPhone and still make a sizeable profit easily. But the public has bought into this corporate nonsense and cult of wealth porn.

You can’t get to your complaint until the lack of talent willing to do the job, and the local and federal government being unwelcoming is addressed.

What was Cook’s and the executive leadership’s explanation to move production out of the US? Apple is not unique in their business decision.

 

[IIGS User]

Make no mistake, Apple wants to make more iPhones in India for one reason. Business.

China was already on the downswing. Issues with trade secrets, and how ingrained the CCP is in everything that transits China is already a serious issue for production. Apple has been exploring Vietnam and Inda for years now.

The latest developments with "zero covid" and how its impacted iPhone production is an "enough is enough" moment. If you can't make product, you can't make profits. India and Vietnam are going to be "it" for the next decade or so.

But Tim is a logistical genius, and sooner or later that manufacturing will move AGAIN. Right now, the majority of the logistics for the production of Apple products is focused on Asia. The precursor products are all made there, and it makes sense.

Watch out for South America. It's a vast untapped source of cheap labor. With the expansion of chip production to plants in North America, it's only a matter of time. My guess would be Venezuela. Remember we're talking a decade long time frame.

Tim Cook is the Tridimensional Chess master of this stuff, and you KNOW he's thinking 15 moves ahead.....

 

[Alexfromaz]

That would be great! I hope other companies begin to move out of china

 

[Chazak]

How did you calculate this extra cost if it’s made in the US?

So here is a partial list of things costing significantly more in the United States that impact costs and selling prices ...

Labor, energy, land, building costs, overlapping government regulation between Feds and state authorities, insurance, transportation, tax breaks paid for by the public ... shall I go on?

 

[I7guy]

I don’t get it we used to be able to make things in the US from Television sets, computers etc. People were able to afford it and have jobs.
So what changed?

It’s a long story decades in the making, not suitable for this forum, but suffice it to say if you know, you know.

 

[MacFan23]

Rubbish... Tesla makes its cars here, Boeing it's airplanes, etc... they don't cost 40% more than global competition.

Build the phones sold in the U.S. in the U.S.

American purchases should profit American workers.

It's a nice ideal, but there are both supply chain issues and labour issues at play. Not only are the devices assembled abroad, but so are the components and the knowledge.

The other issue at play is scale, the US simply doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to make the quantity of devices Apple sells. The comparison of cars and planes to something like an iPhone is night and day.

 

[I7guy]

You can’t get to your complaint until the lack of talent willing to do the job, and the local and federal government being unwelcoming is addressed.

What was Cook’s and the executive leadership’s explanation to move production out of the US? Apple is not unique in their business decision.

SJ started this ball rolling years ago, but he is unavailable for comment.

 

[SnappleRumors]

SJ started this ball rolling years ago, but he is unavailable for comment.

True in the sense he turned it over to Tim Cook and executive leadership and approved their plan. Furthermore Cook has discussed this in the past.

 

[citysnaps]

And see that right there is the myth. The actual truth is that large mega corporations like Apple overcharge for its products regardless of where they are built. Apple is worth $1 trillion dollars. Why are their phones so expensive? So that they can continue to hoard absurd amounts of wealth and pay top executives (eg not the people inventing anything) ridiculous bonuses.

They could move production into the west and cut the price of the iPhone and still make a sizeable profit easily. But the public has bought into this corporate nonsense and cult of wealth porn.

Apple tries to maintain roughly 40% GPM across its products; a reasonable margin all things considered.

"Why are their phones so expensive? So that they can continue to hoard absurd amounts of wealth and pay top executives (eg not the people inventing anything) ridiculous bonuses."

Apple phones are expensive due to the above, the large number of employees on the payroll with benefits, the large overhead charges a company of Apple's size incurs, and on and on.


"They could move production into the west and cut the price of the iPhone and still make a sizeable profit easily. But the public has bought into this corporate nonsense and cult of wealth porn."

That's great. Perhaps you can share your in-depth analysis here and with Apple executives, where in the West 600,000+ iPhones can be manufactured daily, and how iPhone prices could be cut while still making Apple's GPM.

 

[I7guy]

True in the sense he turned it over to Tim Cook and executive leadership and approved their plan. Furthermore Cook has discussed this in the past.

True. The ceo is responsible for all decisions in a company. Cook may have recommended it, but Jobs signed off on it.

 

[I7guy]

Apple tries to maintain roughly 40% GPM across its products; a reasonable margin all things considered.

"Why are their phones so expensive? So that they can continue to hoard absurd amounts of wealth and pay top executives (eg not the people inventing anything) ridiculous bonuses."

Apple phones are expensive due to the above, the large number of employees on the payroll with benefits, the large overhead charges a company of Apple's size incurs, and on and on.


"They could move production into the west and cut the price of the iPhone and still make a sizeable profit easily. But the public has bought into this corporate nonsense and cult of wealth porn."

That's great. Perhaps you can share your in-depth analysis here and with Apple executives, where in the West 600,000+ iPhones can be manufactured daily, and how iPhone prices could be cut while still making Apple's GPM.

You know as I know there will be crickets. It’s real easy to claim an anonymous MR poster knows apples manufacturing better than apple.

 

[tridley68]

Becoming less Dependant on China is always a good thing .

 

[MNGR]

https://nextshark.com/real-cost-of-iphone.

This says labor costs are like 7hrs per phone at $2/hr

So if moved to the US at $20/hr it would cost $140. So if people were willingly to pay an additional $100-150 per phone it could work.

The total cost of labor wouldn’t be much higher. Hourly wages are only part of the cost that companies incur and pass along to their customers

 

[RalfTheDog]

Wish the headline said “apple wants to move all production to the United States”

That will never happen. Not only related to the cost but related to the quality of the work. American workers are slow, lazy and stupid. There is no QC.

The advantage in car manufacturing is that the assembly line can be operated largely by robots (likely due to the size of components) while the making of electronics like phones is mostly hand assembly where that cheap labour comes in handy. So either you pay more for the American labour or you pay more by making the products more automated in the production- which leads to less workers having jobs.

Also consider that cars are big and heavy. That makes them far more expensive to ship than a small box you can fit in your hand.

Resisting any political commentary because I've had my knuckles rapped by MR moderators. Suffice it say that I believe it would be a good idea to move production back into countries that at least aspire to have human rights, and in any case human workers will be less and less important as robots take over jobs like manual assembly.

The MR moderators are crazy. They once deleted one of my posts because I said, [REDACTED!!!!!!! We told you not to say, [REDACTED!!!! MR moderator edit moderated for quoting moderated content]]

 

[RalfTheDog]

I don't think the United States will ever host highly skilled manufacturing again on any large scale. I would love to see new plants opened up in Mexico, Central and South America.

 

[Sir Desmond]

And just like clockwork, China now tries to destabilise India with new border incursions.

Clashes reported.

 

[RalfTheDog]

And just like clockwork, China now tries to make border incursions again info India.

Clashes reported.

China and Russia are economically on the way out. I suspect other parts of Asia, Africa and South America will be taking their place.

 

[SnappleRumors]

True. The ceo is responsible for all decisions in a company. Cook may have recommended it, but Jobs signed off on it.

Um… okay. So going back to the original post we don’t need SJ being available to understand why Cook and the others took Apple to China.

 

[SactoGuy18]

The big issue for increase iPhone production in India is to get as many component factories into the country as possible.

 

[ipedro]

That won't happen unless people buying those phones are willing to pay several hundred dollars more.

Apple would be competing against products built with dramatically lower assembly costs. Most components would still be produced outside of America.

It won't happen regardless of price. The United States simply does not have the manufacturing supply ecosystem that exists in Asia. Aside from economic forces and labour law restrictions, Apple would still need to source its components from suppliers who've built entire cities of interconnected material and component manufacturing over decades.

Some components like chips which are highly specialized and low labour will see a transition to the US but final assembly simply cannot make commercial sense at the scale the iPhone requires. Moving it from China to India does, as all those suppliers are still in the region.

 

[ipedro]

I don’t get it we used to be able to make things in the US from Television sets, computers etc. People were able to afford it and have jobs.
So what changed?

A 20" TV used to cost $600 in the 80s.

That's $1,500 in 2022, adjusted for inflation.

Today, you can buy a 30-40" flat screen smart TV for $200-$300 on Amazon. That's $79 for a TV in 1984 dollars.

Electronics today are disposable. In the 80s, you'd buy a TV and hold onto it for a decade or two. You got that Walkman? Lucky you, now take care of it until it breaks cuz you're not getting another one so quickly. In the 2020s, we replace our incredibly high tech miniaturized pocket computers like we swap our jeans. Heck, some people's jeans last much longer than an iPhone.

This has been enabled by manufacturing cities in Asia, that have developed ecosystems of suppliers all located closely together, and run by workers that literally live in the factories. This is not possible in the US with its labour laws and economic expectations. Even if prices were to go up to account for this, it'd still be impossible because hundreds of suppliers wouldn't just pick up and move to the US.

 

[I7guy]

Um… okay. So going back to the original post we don’t need SJ being available to understand why Cook and the others took Apple to China.

True, we only have to understand that jobs gave the okay.

 

[CarAnalogy]

That won't happen unless people buying those phones are willing to pay several hundred dollars more.

Apple would be competing against products built with dramatically lower assembly costs. Most components would still be produced outside of America.

Picking this as one of many several comments. We say the exploitative labor in China is bad, while fully admitting that paying people American levels of wages breaks the whole system. Well which is it, does this mean we're ok with the exploitative labor? Are these really the only two choices, made by slaves or economically infeasible?

 

[SnappleRumors]

True, we only have to understand that jobs gave the okay.

You might not have an interest in Clark’s reasoning for why he took Apple to China and why Clark felt the US wasn’t competitive but the post you quoted of mine wasn’t directed to you. Now you are resorting to pointless bickering, being obtuse, and difficult.

True…

That‘s all that needed said. Glad I could help.

 

[CarAnalogy]

A 20" TV used to cost $600 in the 80s.

View attachment 2127269

That's $1,500 in 2022, adjusted for inflation.

Today, you can buy a 30-40" flat screen smart TV for $200-$300 on Amazon. That's $79 for a TV in 1984 dollars.

View attachment 2127270

Electronics today are disposable. In the 80s, you'd buy a TV and hold onto it for a decade or two. You got that Walkman? Lucky you, now take care of it until it breaks cuz you're not getting another one so quickly. In the 2020s, we replace our incredibly high tech miniaturized pocket computers like we swap our jeans. Heck, some people's jeans last much longer than an iPhone.

This has been enabled by manufacturing cities in Asia, that have developed ecosystems of suppliers all located closely together, and run by workers that literally live in the factories. This is not possible in the US with its labour laws and economic expectations. Even if prices were to go up to account for this, it'd still be impossible because hundreds of suppliers wouldn't just pick up and move to the US.

So where does this take us to the logical conclusion? Is it better to have more disposable electronics than we know what to do with made by essentially a feudal system? Do we not get out of this until we have fully automated manufacturing and live in a post-work economy?