Apple's New Mac Pro Won't Be 'Made in USA' as Production Reportedly Moving to China

[alphaod]

Making it in Texas didn't make much sense anyways... All the components are manufactured in Asia. The only thing that made the old Mac Pro 'Made in USA' was the final assembly.

 

[Shirasaki]

Margin percent is what it is. There is no reason that because the product is more expensive that there is more room for overhead. If Apple wants to hit 60% margin, they wanna hit 60% margin. My company sells a few products that are high sales price but a much smaller margin while we have products less than half the cost to the consumer but our margin is 25% or higher than that “high end” consumer product. Such as it is for many products.

It is unfortunate that even Apple can’t make a small unit sales item in the US. However, they are a company not our friend. Making money is they goal, it’s what the shareholders want and it’s their American duty to promote capitalism to the fullest.

If we want stuff made here, we need to make better choices on who we vote for, make our policy wishes known, and make it worthwhile to assemble here. Also, we need to train a workforce for jobs like that, but those positions need to exist here in the first place. Also, coming out of college with higher debt means the job needs to pay really well or the education to get that job needs to cost less and then the job can pay less.

China wins, no human rights, poor pay, millions of people ready to do the work, communist subsidies to build up towns to become tech centers.

America lost as politicians, CEOs, and employees got greedier and greedier (or capitalism). The jobs are gone, they are never going to come back.

We need to move on with a new field in America, a new concept that we invent and educate and manufacture for. Then we can become world leaders again. Until then we will fall further and further behind in the world.

Well said. Thumbs up.

 

[japanime]

Missed opportunity. Apple could have stamped each Mac Pro with the slogan "Make America GRATE Again."

 

[filterdecay]

If I were Trump I would charge them 50% tariffs for this move.

If you were trump you would charge yourself 50% tariff? If more tariffs go into effect this product would be more anyhow. This $6000 price already includes a 10% tariff from aluminum among god knows what else. Consumers pay tariffs.
[doublepost=1561765921][/doublepost]

Are there any non-political comments or can this thread be avoided altogether?

Gonna be hard to talk about manufacturing without it getting political in this climate unfortunately.
[doublepost=1561766157][/doublepost]

[doublepost=1561754299][/doublepost]The tariff is an attempt to even the playing field with Chinese slave labor.

The Chinese aren't the bottom players anymore. In a trade world where there must be winners and losers and trump gets to pick them, the winners and losers just move around from market driven capitalism to crony capitalism.

 

[startergo]

If you were trump you would charge yourself 50% tariff? If more tariffs go into effect this product would be more anyhow.

From this motion benefit only the shareholders, from the tariffs-the rest. Anyway the real-price should be 3K

 

[handheldgames]

So you are saying it will be cheaper in Europe?

Jokes aside but you can kill that thought.

that depends if Apple is willing to eat the losses in the USA and the price didn't include the COGS(cost of goods sold) tariff.

Considering $1usd = .88 eur The mac pro would be $5280eur before VAT, $6283eur with VAT. MacPro's imported into europe would likely be shipped from china and would not be subject to any tariffs.

As far as the USA price goes.... The increase could built into the price... In either case, the extra profits from Europe are always the extra icing on the cake, like they usually are. After all a US product for $1usd is priced as $1eur or $1pound despite the difference in markets. When the Sega Genesis was $199usd it sold as $199pound when there was a .7USD to 1pound difference.

 

[joot]

I don't care where it's made. For this price point I expect it to work without issues.

 

[Shirasaki]

Something makes me think there is an additional aspect to this - Tim Cook clearly wants to distance himself from DT. If the new Mac Pro was produced in the USA then DT could use this as an extravagant (as is his nature) claim about bringing "good jobs" back. I am quite sure, that rather than give up 2% profit and actually bring a few jobs back to the USA, TC would rather play politics.

A very interesting perspective, but I can see this move as legitimate decision. Maybe those big players are sending these less obvious messages to Tell Trump that “he is not the Center of the world”. Doubt trump would bother trying to understand this part though.

 

[Marshall73]

Apple can still ship all the bits to the USA where they can be assembled for Custom orders.

 

[0388631]

I remember Gateway running into financial trouble and they hired locally in the US. If anyone's old enough to have read tech magazines back in the late 80s and 90s, then you'd remember they had a spotted building and they focused on hiring locals to help design and build stuff. It's the way things work out. It's cheaper to build oversees due to relaxed regulations and no one being a credible issue when they want more money.

CNC machines are the reason the case alone costs quite a lot. Even with China's subsidized sectors, they're still expensive to make and use. User @jkcerda can explain this in better detail since he knows in the ins and outs of those metal CNC thingamajigs.

 

[GuruZac]

Yes greedy Tim Cook: keeping costs as low as possible to drive down on prices for customers.

Have you seen the starting MSRP? What a joke. Apple is making a terrible decision.
[doublepost=1561771403][/doublepost]

I get that manufacturing (even just assembly labor) in the US is high. But why not set up shop in Mexico? At least the economic benefit would go to our southerly neighbors. Plus you avoid shipping across the Pacific, and tariffs.
I'm really tired of companies putting all their eggs in the Chinese manufacturing basket.



This sort of shareholder-focused capitalism, which really has only been present since the 1980s, is why wealth has become so top-heavy in recent decades. Chasing profits at the expense of everything else is why we've ended up where we are -- and is also why many people today have a negative view of capitalism.

Totally agree with you. We have crony capitalism and really, corporatism in the U.S. many Americans are under the delusion that it’s the Left and their ‘socialist’ ideology vs the Right and their ‘Corporate apologist’ mentality when they both are controlled by crony corporations and special interests.

 

[ruslan120]

Yet another reason not to buy it.

 

[terraphantm]

Yes greedy Tim Cook: keeping costs as low as possible to drive down on prices for customers.

Yeah, that’s why this thing is starting at $6k.

 

[HappyIntro]

I think the reason these will be built in China is pretty simple, and it’s been explained several times by Tim Cook and others. It takes a very specific expertise to manufacture these types of goods, and Chinese companies are way better at it than anybody else. Manufacturing these types of things takes manufacturing know-how that the US does not have anymore. Stop thinking of China as the place of super cheap labor and start thinking about China as the place where very smart people are pushing forward the latest and best manufacturing processes and practices in the world. Way more qualified to do this than any other country. Wages in China have gone up a lot over the past ten years or so, so much that many factories have moved out of China to Thailand or Vietnam to build less technically demanding things that are getting too expensive to produce in China. But the fact remains that China builds a lot of our tech products because they are simply the best in the world at building these types of products.

 

[filterdecay]

Yet another reason not to buy it.

didnt stop you from buying all that apple stuff in your sig.

 

[mikethemartian]

If anyone's old enough to have read tech magazines back in the late 80s and 90s

You’re killing me

 

[IlluminatedSage]

Would have been amazing to keep more Mac Production diverse and US based. even this high priced and lower volume line.

 

[az431]

With a price tag of $5999, you'd think that there would be enough "overhead" to pay an American worker a living wage to, at the very least, assemble these. The iMac we just bought for a client was assembled in Pennsylvania.

So basically Apple and its customers subsidize jobs. Genius idea. Let us know how you plan solve world hunger.
[doublepost=1561777878][/doublepost]

I thought the materials were the issue as well. If the cost of materials & labor are cheaper in China, Apple is obligated to their stock holders to produce the product as cheaply as possible for a profit.

Exactly.

 

[elgrecomac]

America can't compete in manufacturing. That's just reality.

To be accurate, America try’s its best to prevent the exploitation of its workforce. China doesn’t give a **** about its workers

Google 996. 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

 

[az431]

And I'm sure Apple will pass along the cost savings to its customers.

It has never been manufactured in the US so the costs savings are zero.
[doublepost=1561778123][/doublepost]

To be accurate, America try’s its best to prevent the exploitation of its workforce. China doesn’t give a **** about its workers

Google 996. 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

You mean the same America that pays a minimum wage below poverty level?

 

[elgrecomac]

It has never been manufactured in the US so the costs savings are zero.
[doublepost=1561778123][/doublepost]

You mean the same America that pays a minimum wage below poverty level?

Oh You’re right. I forgot how well China take care of their workers.

They treat them like chattel.

 

[Bawstun]

Make CNC machines dirt cheap and don't allow American companies to charge a fortune per unit and Apple could easily assemble it here.
[doublepost=1561754252][/doublepost]
Except that isn't true given Apple keeps making record profit.

It’s easy to make record profits when you jack up price and use other kinds of marketing tricks into your statistics.

Their marketshare has declined, profits are up. Once the tipping point of lost marketshare happens, the ecosystem begins to crumble because Apple exists in its App Store and nothing else (their services revenue is a joke).

 

[0388631]

It’s easy to make record profits when you jack up price and use other kinds of marketing tricks into your statistics.

Their marketshare has declined, profits are up. Once the tipping point of lost marketshare happens, the ecosystem begins to crumble because Apple exists in its App Store and nothing else (their services revenue is a joke).

IF R&D costs go up, should not the price slide up, too?

 

[simply258]

Apple’s sales strategy these days, in the US at least, seems to be having high sticker prices then offer them for lower on Amazon and other resellers. All the discounts we see these days must be coordinated with Apple.

 

[code-m]

Greedy old Tim Crook, up to his usual one trick pony leadership.

Tim works for the shareholders, and they are greedy. So what is your point.
[doublepost=1561785082][/doublepost]

Apple’s sales strategy these days, in the US at least, seems to be having high sticker prices then offer them for lower on Amazon and other resellers. All the discounts we see these days must be coordinated with Apple.

How are they going to pay for that new campus, renovations, higher wages, etc.
[doublepost=1561785372][/doublepost]

IF R&D costs go up, should not the price slide up, too?

People here only look at material costs. Forget hardware/software testing, manufacturing for quality control inspections via travel, licensing, royalties, patents, trademarks, etc, etc, etc.

All those are magical costs. Forget wages, benefits, operation costs, etc.
[doublepost=1561785603][/doublepost]

Oh You’re right. I forgot how well China take care of their workers.

They treat them like chattel.

I would not be pointing the finger at other countries. Though I may not support another countries human rights issues, USA is not without it’s own wrongdoings.

Not a political forum to get into it, sorry.