Cost is not the reason all consumer electronics are made in China. Actually, manufacturing there is now more expensive than Estern Europe.
They build them there because all the supply chain is already there. In Shenzhen, the capacitors, resistors, PCBs and most chips are sourced in bulk from around the block. That's something no other country in the West or even East has and it's such a complex interconnected ecosystem that you can't replicate it anywhere else right now.
Most of the CNC, tooling and moulding craftsmen are there as well, the west has far too few left to be able to take over such volumes. Training so many can take years and that's assuming you even find enough people willing to be trained.
I've been watching a lot of videos on Shenzhen and it's just mental. There's basically same day delivery by bicycle or truck of anything your supply line might be running low on.
It's like their transport latency is so low and reliable that they don't need as much buffering. It's amazing to see what small and large quantity production lines can look like.
The bigger issue is that the nature of smart phone releases is that each time you want to bring out a new model, you need to employ a few tens of thousands of people for a relatively short time to assemble them. This isn't possible in most countries due to labour laws and/or shortage of workers.
tesla is starting to automate car manufacturing and seems to be making progress. can you comment on the feasibility on automating smartphone manufacturing? do elements of smartphone manufacturing render automation intractable, or harder than car manufacturing?
As I understand it, the majority of individual smartphone components would be manufactured using automation, and the primary step that takes place in Shenzhen is someone physically putting all the pieces together. I couldn't make an informed comment on the feasibility or cost effectiveness of trying to automate this process as well (I'd guess it's fairly low due to the relative uniqueness of each phone model) but maybe someone else can.
And Tesla is well behind the major car manufacturers in using automation.
the car/tesla analogy was a mistake as it's secondary and evidently not true, but too late to edit the comment. thanks for sharing about smartphone manufacturing. it seems like foxconn is already moving toward this, though naturally slower than projected: https://qz.com/1312079/iphone-maker-foxconn-is-churning-out-...
can you recommend any sources for learning more about the state of automated CE/smartphone manufacturing, or this based on personal experience?
This is ridiculous. You are making it sound like those suppliers are immovable and somehow only available in China. But let's face it, Apple is in China because of almost unlimited cheap, unskilled rural labor force that can't be found elsewhere. Samsung was also in same spot years ago, but found a much better deal in Vietnam years back and in fact moved much of their smartphone operation there (along with some 200+ subcontractors and suppliers). Unlike Samsung's AMOLED displays, Corning's Gorilla glasses, or SONY's cameras, there is nothing in China that can't be produced elsewhere.
Vietnam also has hundreds of thousands of CNC, toolings and craftmen to produce in Samsung's volume. This supply chain narrative is something Apple marketing folks invented to justify their outsourcing. Trump's trade war with China, as many contract manufacturer move out of China, will prove none of that supply chain myth is true within a year or two.
While you're right that the logistical issues can all be reduced to cost, it removes a lot of nuance to act as if logistical superiority is the same as the vernacular low-cost.
