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Apple for the first time makes a top-of-the-line iPhone model in India
- numpad0 6y ago“Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in India.”
- mmastrac 6y ago"... Taxed in Ireland"
- bergstromm466 6y agoWith IP monpolized and enforced by the neo-colonial global North corporatocracy or empire, thanks to TRIPS [1] - "Meanwhile, the educational, information and intellectual commons have been plundered more than at any time in history. Thomas Jefferson, a founding father of the US Constitution, correctly said, ‘Ideas, in nature, cannot be made the subject of property.’ Sadly, that is precisely what has been done in the neo-liberal era. A globalised intellectual property rights system was immensely strengthened by TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) passed through the World Trade Organisation in 1994, shaped by a few US multinationals, backed by the US and UK governments. This has facilitated the commercialisation, privatisation and colonisation of ideas. Since 1994, the annual filing of patents has more than tripled, with the global stock of patents close to 12 million, each giving monopolistic control of some idea for 20 years or more. Many patents result from publicly-funded research, diminishing the risk. But TRIPS allows corporations to receive monopolistic income for two decades, or use the patent to block others from producing something. Those claiming to believe in free markets should have opposed the trend, but reveal their class-based ideology by keeping quiet. There is evidence that the patent system hinders economic growth and innovation. It merely increases inequality and rentier capitalism." [1] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/plunder-commons-compensate-commoners/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/plunder-commons-...
- beervirus 6y agoEvery (or almost every?) industrialized nation already had a patent system. The TRIPS agreement just standardized some aspects of those disparate systems across countries.
- bergstromm466 6y ago"Of all the forms of artificial property and legal privilege in existence, the one most indispensable to corporate power in today's economy is probably "intellectual property. A large portion of the price of most goods and services consists of embedded rents on “intellectual property.” Tom Peters, in The Tom Peters Seminar, argued that the cost of materials probably accounted for some $60 of the total price of his new Minolta camera, and that he paid “the rest, about $640, for its intellect....” He went on to celebrate the portion of economic value made up of “intellect” and “imagination.”33 Whether Peters' estimate is typical for the portion of the price of manufactured goods made up of rents on IP is doubtful. But in an economy with no property rights in software and product design, with competition unrestricted by "intellectual property" claims of any kind, whatever portion of a product's price was made up of rent on the ownership of designs or ideas—as opposed to labor and materials—would evaporate overnight. IP is a major legal support to oligopoly, since so many cartels were stabilized by the exchange or pooling of patents between the major players in various industries (e.g. G.E. And Westinghouse in home appliances, the Bell Patent Association as the basis for AT&T, RCA as a patent pooling arrangement for the major radio producers, etc.). If IP were abolished, there would be no legal barrier against many small companies producing competing modular components or accessories for the same platform, or even big companies producing modular components designed for interoperability with other companies products. That means that IP is an important legal bulwark not only for planned obsolescence, but also for a business model based on selling cheap platforms and then charging an enormous markup to a captive market for accessories. If you've ever remarked on how expensive toner cartridges or glucometer testing strips are, you can thank “intellectual property” for it. It's odd that the so-called “Free Trade Agreements” promoted by so many professed “free traders” focus so disproportionately on provisions for stricter enforcement of patents and copyrights. IP plays exactly the same protectionist role for global corporations that tariffs did for the old national industrial economies. Patents and copyrights are barriers, not to the movement of physical goods, but to the diffusion of technique and technology. The one, as much as the other, constitutes a monopoly of productive capability. “Intellectual property” enables the transnational corporation to benefit from the moral equivalent of tariff barriers, regardless of where it is situated. In so doing, it breaks the old link between geography and protectionism. With an American tariff on a particular kind of good, the corporations producing that good have a monopoly on it only within the American market. With the “tariff” provided by a patent on the industrial technique for producing that good, the same corporations have an identical monopoly in every single country in the world that adheres to the international patent regime. “Intellectual property,” just as much as the tariff, is a form of protectionism in that it restricts the right to produce a given good for a particular market area to a privileged class of firms." Source: http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Political-Economy-of-Waste.pdf http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Political-Economy... -- Your argument that patent systems already existed does nothing to critique the systems, or the dynamics of the systems, themselves. Instead of accepting things on face value or because an authority has made a claim, I am trying instead to find out the story of how it came to be. I am not arguing that we should not have any system at all. I strongly disagree however that the existing systems are as harmless as you make them out to be. When you say it "just standardized some aspects" it brushes under the rug any nuance of the underlying mechanics of these systems.
- api 6y agoTrue, but find me a member of the Fortune 500 that does not do this kind of thing.
- BbzzbB 6y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted. It's true that it doesn't make it any less immoral, but at the end of the day companies will seek to lower their costs, after all it is their mission, hence this (major) problem is political and shouldn't depend on corporations good will.
- giarc 6y agoGovernments have to close this loophole. A CEO is going to be quickly ousted if they suggest not taking advantage of the well known tactic. For one it means less money in the pockets of shareholders but also reduces the ability to compete if all other companies are paying little to no tax. Until governments step in, nothing will change.
- api 6y agoThis is the nature of regulation in general. Without it anyone who does shady stuff gains a massive advantage.
- sneak 6y agoPaying the minimum in tax allowed by law to reserve the maximum amount of money possible for pursuing your own social or charitable goals is not immoral. The government is not a charity (indeed, Apple HQ’s government uses some fraction of their tax revenues to conduct mass murder) and to argue that anyone is immoral for not paying more tax than is specified by the law is an argument against the rule of law in society. If you don’t like the laws, take it up with your lawmakers, or with the concept of representative government or democracy in general, NOT those who explicitly comply with the law, and indeed spend millions on staff (and their payroll taxes) to ensure that they do.
- 6y ago
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoOr even "... barely taxed in Ireland"
- valuearb 6y agoApple pays taxes in every country it does business in. The remaining profits it keeps in Ireland because of the low tax rate, otherwise if returned to the US it would be taxed again. US international corporate taxation works like this if you repatriate profits to dividend to shareholders: 1) First pay taxes on profits in each country the profits were made. 2) Out of the remainder pay state corporate income tax in the US state you are headquartered in. 3) out of remainder pay federal corporate income tax. 4) out of remainder shareholder pays state income tax. 5) out of remainder shareholder pays federal dividend tax. Typically the shareholder is able to keep about 30-40% of their share of the original profits after they go through the five layers of taxation.
- DSingularity 6y agoSeriously? 30-40? Is that accurate!?
- Terretta 6y agoLess if you include sticker price then deduct VAT.
- valuearb 6y agoFollowing is roughly accurate from memory. Worldwide, Corporate tax rates by country range between 5-55%, but typically are between 20-30%. US Corporate tax rate is now 20%. State corporate tax rates range from zero (NV) to 10%. State income tax rates range from zero to 11%. Federal dividend rates range from 15-20%. Using the the best case scenario (no state income or corporate tax, foreign corporate tax of 5%) gives a total effective tax rate of 35%. Using more typical rates (8% state income/corporate, 25% foreign) produces a total tax rate of 58%. So looks like I was pessimistic, probably because my from memory numbers didn’t include Trump tax cut. But a worst case scenario (France 35%, CA 9%, Dividend 20%) still produces a 65% total effective tax rate.
- stingrae 6y agoIsn't this only for revenue generated in the European Union?
- the_h1b1 6y ago“Designed by American Apple in California. Assembled by Taiwanese Foxconn in India.”
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Shivetya 6y agoApple truly needs to get out of China, the amount of virtue signalling they do comes up sour considering their current manufacturing being heavily based in China. Look, I am all for corporations playing the good guy and standing up for what is right but you don't get a Get Out of Jail Free card with just a message, actions speak louder. This could be more along the lines of alarmist chatter but should the US get a new President China's best opportunity to act on some of its threats to Hong Kong and Taiwan is after February 2021. Guarantee they took the lesson to heart about how Crimea and Ukraine were handled with effectively little more than hash tag diplomacy.
- dan-robertson 6y agoI don’t think the dependence for manufacturing is sufficient to explain all the pressure Apple faces in China. Even if they were to move all manufacturing (not just final assembly) out of China they would still want to sell iPhones to the Chinese. The cynic in me would suppose that the move is merely in case there is a backlash against anything “made in China” by western consumers/governments, but maybe Apple really are trying to reduce dependence on China or just cut costs. In China I expect Apple to be just as craven as ever.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoApple USA and Apple China are, in a sense, different companies, even if they're owned by the same shareholders. If they're manufacturing for the USA market in China, it gives China leverage over Apple USA and not just Apple China.
- throw776432 6y agoIf that’s your reason, then Apple would need to move to Switzerland. India has its own atrocities with Kashmir, Pakistan, recently Nepal, and their discriminatory Citizensip policy.
- saagarjha 6y agoSome of their products already say "Vietnam" on them, particularly accessories.
- politician 6y agoThey should use the Foxconn plant in Wisconsin.
- detaro 6y agoDon't think that'd help them avoid Indian import duty ;)
- giarc 6y agoWasn't that a flop that produced a fraction of the jobs promised for the billions in government hand outs?
- notatoad 6y agoIt's only a flop if you assume that collecting billions in government handouts wasn't the whole point in the first place.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoIt wasn't the first time this con has been pulled. Greentech Auto did this with an electric car plant in Mississippi.
- missedthecue 6y agoA tax break on future earnings that never materialize is not "collecting billions in government handouts". Foxconn tried to make it work and ended up several hundred million in the red on that project. They didn't come away richer.
- hristov 6y agoThat one is a little existentially challenged. As it only exists in Trump speeches.
- three_seagrass 6y agoYeah, since Foxconn isn't using it: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/12/21217060/foxconn-wisconsin-innovation-centers-empty-buildings https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/12/21217060/foxconn-wisconsi...
- bdcravens 6y agoofftopic: this site breaks the back arrow (takes you to blank interstitial)
- esalman 6y agoTrue, that's pretty infuriating. I have mostly seen illegal sports streaming sites do that.
- eitland 6y agoHint: for all but the most egregious offenders a long click (or right click) on the back button might bring up a list of the pages you visited before this. You can then click an earlier one to get back to safe ground. Most people around here probably know already but there's always one or two that will have their life improved a lot I think.
- btown 6y agoOut of morbid curiosity, how does one become an "egregious offender" and nuke the entire back-button history? Are there ways other than (intentionally or unintentionally) doing history.pushState in a loop?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- d3nj4l 6y agoI think the title should include "India", since I don't know if everybody is expected to know that Chennai is in India.
- melling 6y ago“Hey Siri, where is Chennai” The article also covers it immediately.
- Robotbeat 6y ago>90% of the people who read the headline won’t click... if you want to inform those >90% of people of a pertenant fact (Apple is starting to produce iPhone 11s in India), make the headline say it. (Only reading the headline isn’t laziness... that’s like saying browsing library bookshelves without reading each book cover-to-cover as you go is laziness...)
- melling 6y agoNo, the analogy doesn’t hold because it takes hours to read a book. If you care that much, you can look up the information within seconds. Apple even has this nice feature where you click on a word and it lets you look it up immediately. Telling me that it’s in Chennai, gives me much more information than simply saying India because I know where Chennai is located And even if I didn’t know, i appreciate the more specific information in the title, which implies the missing information. Now that the title says India, I need to exert more effort to find the city. So, does anyone feel like an Ugly American yet? “Don’t tell me it’s in Milan, tell me it’s in Italy”
- Robotbeat 6y agoThe analogy holds because it’s a mere difference in degree, not in quality. I picked the analogy to exaggerate the degree in order to more clearly illustrate the quality. Although at least this headline is fully honest and not misleading, so kudos there.
- 6y ago
- jedberg 6y agoApple isn't stupid. They know there is a good chance producing in China will no longer be profitable, or maybe not even possible with a future administration. I predict a lot of production will move out of China because the USA will shift to a protectionist model in the next few years. Apple is hedging against the same prediction.
- wow_no 6y agoIsn’t Biden significantly more pro-China than Trump?
- atlgator 6y agoBiden will reverse course.
- jedberg 6y agoI’m not so sure. Public sentiment is against China right now among Republicans and Democrats. Also at their current growth rate their GDP will surpass the USA around 2025. It would be a uniting thing across party lines to rally around hurting the Chinese economy.
- jjcon 6y agoI agree - Biden is also launching his made in America campaign which will only push things further. On your point of 2025 I don’t think that is quite right since they would need to grow by 150% in 5 years with the US not growing at all (both would be very unprecedented) but the overall point remains.
- benlumen 6y agoIs he really? That sounds hopeful. I'd perhaps wrongly assumed that the Democrats would undo Trump's efforts to create and keep jobs in the US and revert to unfettered globalism.
- 6y ago
- chvid 6y agoAre they actually selling the iPhone 11 in India? Last I read phone sales in India had a massive drop.
- chvid 6y agohttps://techcrunch.com/2020/07/17/india-smartphone-shipments-slashed-in-half-in-q2-2020/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/17/india-smartphone-shipments... Smartphone shipments in India fell 48% in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, the most drastic drop one of the rare growing markets has seen in a decade, research firm Canalys reported Friday evening. About 17.3 million smartphone units shipped in Q2 2020, down from 33 million in Q2 2019 and 33.5 million in Q1 2020. ... Apple, which commands only 1% of the Indian smartphone market, was the least impacted among the top 10 vendors as iPhone shipments fell just 20% year-on-year to over 250,000 in Q2 2020.
- dpacmittal 6y agoIndia was in one of the strictest lockdown for a period of 2 months starting March 23rd.
- f00zz 6y agoThe new Motorola Razr is also being assembled in India. Is this a trend?
- perryizgr8 6y agoSamsung has been assembling flagships in India for a couple years now. Certainly not new. New for Apple definitely.
- m0zg 6y agoShouldn't it be "Foxconn started making iPhone 11 near Chennai"? Apple is not "making" anything in this case.
- saagarjha 6y agoApple "makes" iPhones by contracting them out to Foxconn, so I wouldn't call the title inaccurate; it's just trying to appeal to more people.
- jjcon 6y agoBy that same reasoning you could also say ‘Foxconn is company and it doesn’t make anything, Indian people are making the iPhone 11 near Chennai’ It isn’t technically wrong but usually the inventor/creator is credited regardless of who they paid to assemble it.
- codemac 6y agoIt's like the RICO act or something. The Indian people are doing this voluntarily at the direction of Foxconn who is doing this voluntarily at the direction of Apple. I'm sure we can go higher than just Apple as well.
- andrewstuart 6y agoSerious question, why not in the USA?
- Antrikshy 6y agoExpensive.
- andrewstuart 6y agoBecause people? Or more than that?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- luxuryballs 6y agoregulations, cost of living, all the various lawsuit risks, taxes
- josephd79 6y agoavg hourly wage is .55/hr USD. That is why.
- andrewstuart 6y agoI wonder what it would add to the total cost of manufacturing a phone, to make it in the USA.
- ska 6y agoAbout double, from a couple of analysis I recall. Not sure how careful they were (note, this is not just for assembly, but for full supply chain).
- donarb 6y agoBecause India wants its people making the phones (and earning wages) that will be sold in their country.
- dan-robertson 6y agoThis isn’t really much of a shift in Apple policy. They seem to be doing this to avoid import duties and take advantage of some other government incentive. I think they also assemble iPhones in Brazil for similar reasons (?)
- elongatedMusku 6y agoNow instead of employing children for insane work hours. People will work for normal hours. Atleast now phones will not be made by slave labour.
- neosat 6y agoThis is really big deal IMO, but perhaps for a reason not directly mentioned in the article and for which you have to realize something about India. Progress in India is usually quite slow (and far slower if you compare to places like US or China). But once there is one shining example, then (partly because of the competition, partly because of the numbers of people) the momentum is strong and only gets larger. This is potentially one of those events and has the potential to catalyze high end devices manufacturing in India leading to other second order effects of expertise in other hardware manufacturing. Looking forward to the innovation and confidence this unlocks.
- missedthecue 6y agoThe adage in India is that if you want to set up shop in china they roll out the red carpet. If you want to set up shop in India, they roll out the red tape.
- tyre 6y agowhy do you think this is? The Jio piece posted here a few days ago (stratechery, I think) made a point of Indian national pride, control, and home-grown expertise playing a large role. Is that the case with new businesses generally?
- unmole 6y ago> why do you think this is? Because the fundamental nature of Indian politicians is socialist and statist.
- dartharva 6y ago> Because the fundamental nature of Indian politicians is socialist and statist. That seems to have changed significantly now, after all a right-wing party has been in power since 2014. It seems to fit well with a lot of the private sector, and it did open up many entrepreneurship schemes too.
- 6y ago
- jerkstate 6y agoTim Cook insisted for years that you just couldn't manufacture stuff outside of China because of the high level of manufacturing skill. [1] Looks like that wasn't really true and it just took a little effort to start up in a different country, all it took was a small increase in the cost of doing business in China. [1] https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-is-number-1-reason-we-make-iphones-in-china-its-not-what-you-think.html https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-...
- luxuryballs 6y agowe'll see what the defect rate is soon enough
- DeonPenny 6y agoPeople said the same about china when manufacturing was sent there.
- totalZero 6y agoThis may come as a shock, but it was relevant then and it's relevant now. There's a perception that QA suffers when production is moved to an area where the manufacturing ecosystem is not as established, which is why people pay attention to defect rates and study process paradigms like Six Sigma.
- luxuryballs 6y agothat's what we'd be comparing it against, I think people say the same thing about any newly spun up factory on earth
- chillacy 6y agoThey're still being made by Foxconn, so all that manufacturing expertise is still there. In the long run my guess is that this knowledge will start to trickle to more local manufacturers. This seems like a great deal for India: threaten a 22% duty, and then you bring in jobs and know-how.
- Apocryphon 6y agoCould shifting manufacturing to India also lead to fewer leaks?
- jonplackett 6y ago> The company hasn’t cut prices as it also sells iPhone 11 handsets made in China in India but industry executives said that could be an option later on. Local production saves Apple 22% import duty. Maybe they'll just keep the change instead.
- la6471 6y agoThat is like less than 1 pc of what is made in China. For all the make outside China hype I wonder how much serious effort will be needed to even make a dent in their current production.