And Tim had to really search to find places with lower employment rights, vacation time etc. than the US offers.
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Is Now the Time to Upgrade Apple Devices Before Tariffs Lead to Price Increases?
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And what about other companies selling electronics? furniture? clothing? gadgets? toys? ...
The reality for a few decades now, in the global economy, is that - and it does not matter if you are in the EU or USA - very few things are made locally in any given country or continent; any more, apart maybe from cars, power tools and some electronic good / appliances plus specialty manufacturing ... part may be local, but still assembled with globally sourced parts. Pretty much everything has shifted to cheaper labor countries ... because companies are for profit, people only have so much buying power and decent quality at a lower price sells.
Now back to Apple doing everything to avoid making products in the USA.
I guess you missed the promise to invest $500 billion locally? And the thing remains, let's say for the heck of it, that it costs an extra $50-100-200 or more per item to compensate for factory building & more expensive labor. So, it would be designed in California and made in the USA. Would everybody in the USA and worldwide want to pay that extra cost?
And, that's even before considering that with the current administration; pretty much anything USA is going to get screwed out of international sales, due to the absolutely stupid tariff war.
So are you saying Wall Street isn't voting with its feet? That this is made up?
At a certain point Trump supporters will have to admit to themselves that the "oh poor Trump, the media just hates him" victimization narrative just doesn't comport with the facts that they can see with their own eyes.
Would love to hear from you, honestly, how you would be reacting if Biden had pushed the stock market off a cliff, threatening a recession, and then left town to spend the weekend playing golf. Let us know if you'd say that everything will work out, it's just the media in that case.
I disagree.
For the end-customer, the declared value for an item costing $999 on import would be $999.
For the manufacturer / retailer the declared value is what they pay pre-margin, i.e. the manufacturing cost, or in case of a distributor, a price including manufacturer's margin.
End-consumer retail price is not the declared value for manufacturers / distributors.
As you can see from the pics below an iPhone pro is 999 USD in the US.
The same phone in Ireland is EUR1239, with a VAT (sales tax) payment of 232. That means the pre-tax price is EUR 1007.
Converting USD 999 to EUR is 911.54 at current exchange rates. That's 10.5% dearer.
Everything across the Apple Store is the same story, and some of the price differentials are larger.
So yes - subsidising. If the rest of the world paid the same price you'd probably be paying 50 dollars more for an iPhone, and we'd be paying 50 dollars less.
And if companies do build factories in those cities (which will take years while people are experiencing economic pain) do you think it'll be the 1970s again, with the same level of manufacturing jobs that the Rust Belt saw?
Nope. That production will be largely performed by robots. Look at any modern factory anywhere, they employ a fraction of the number of people that a factory used to.
I remember an interview cook gave a few years ago where he said that the problem with the USA is that there is not the skilled workforce to assemble iPhones.
I mean, really? In the country that became the workshop of the world mid 20th century?
And he also said, more tellingly, that manufacturing jobs could come back to the USA but less than you might think.
However, we are also told - via Apple pr I suspect - that the USA cannot possibly assemble iPhones because you need a workforce of around a million.
Here’s what I think is going on.
You would need way less people to assemble iPhones with modern automation in the USA (or Western Europe).
But still, the people remaining would be have to paid quite well - and they might strike and join unions.
Following from this, I’d say that:
A) automation is being deliberately held back in the countries that apple manufactures in - ahem, china - to provide lots and lots jobs. Which ostensibly isn’t a bad thing.
And
B) manufacturing absolutely could absolutely come to the USA - with automation - which would still create an awful lot of jobs in us terms.
But Apple doesn’t want to this as it’ll be complicated (paying people well, observing union rights, paying people healthcare etc. … urgh).
So something to think about when we see Apple as the victim of Trump’s machinations.
Really, they are not.
I agree but if that’s the case why is Apple seemingly so reluctant to manufacture in their home market?
Hey America. Just reminding you that you can remove someone from office. You can impeach for high crimes and misdemeanours or you can invoke the 25th amendment. Have a good day.
Not everything is adjusted month by month based on valuta exchange.
There are other factors like local operating costs and corporate taxes too.
So, I would call a $50 difference on an $1000 item hardly " subsidizing " ... as a " subsidy " makes it sound like we're getting some huge cost break for the same item, which is not the case.
I think some people here are labouring under a delusion that high tech manufacturing in Asia is done in on wooden workbenches in sweatshops or in the back of peoples houses in villages or something. They have the same access to technology and robotics as the US and Europe.
I'm pretty sure they can combine modern manufacturing processes with lower labour costs and still come out cheaper. It is not going to be as easy as people think to bring manufacturing back to the US or the EU.
I'm pretty sure they can combine modern manufacturing processes with lower labour costs and still come out cheaper. It is not going to be as easy as people think to bring manufacturing back to the US or the EU.
Ireland has low corporate tax - in fact we're a bit famous for it....
10% cheaper than international customers is a subsidy - maybe not as big as you'd like, but a subsidy nonetheless.
I get it. Apple is being a good citizen of globalisation, that’s all.
But the problem with globalisation is that it assumes it’s a level playing field.
What happens to various industries when china is massively subsidising them? Ie the steel industry? The ev and solar battery industry? Or the e car industry?
I’m not defending trump. I’m just saying that the free market isn’t exactly neutral as it’s often made out to be.
If if it’s not neutral well then maybe you might need to protect industries.
Again - I’ve said in this thread that I’m not American (I’m from the uk and we know a lot about losing an empire) - are you really saying that it’s ok for a county that invented the processor, who commercialised the computer then the pc, that is ok for it to be made in other countries - and barely at all in the USA?
It's not an abandoned salt mine, and the gov't pays $10M annually to store records at Boyers. But keep looking to X for your information.
So it's okay to you that they spend $10M a year to store paper for no good reason?
Amen. The new ‘glass’ iOS 19 will likely look amazing - and run like a dog on anything older than the iPhone 15 generation.
Well, he is talking about himself and his fellow criminals, which will collect the ruined stocks at a massive discount...
If you read about it, you'll see that it's not "for no good reason." Wired has a very thorough story about the location.
Then it will be exciting to see how those people react who always feel free to call California Apple a rip-off, especially the MAGA crew among them.
You forgot to mention Apple TV+.
I love Ted lasso as much as the next person - and I really like silo - but it’s a arguably a colossal waste of money and any future pleas from Apple about the tariffs are negated by things like this.
See also : basically all of apple’s services, which we found out recently are being funded by the 5GB free! iCloud storage and the App Store.
Apple, like other multinational companies, have been chasing supply chain margins for years. The same reason why so many American auto manufacturers have plants in Canada and Mexico, and a car or truck will often make many trips across the border during its production.