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Vietnam to make Apple Watch and MacBook
- nkingsy 4y agoDoesn't seem far enough away or nuclear armed enough to be a very good backup plan.
- coolspot 4y agoThe main criteria for Apple is how poor and abundant population is.
- MuffinFlavored 4y agoWhere were Apple Watch and MacBook made before Vietnam? Is the answer just China and nowhere else? How much does it cost in that location now compared to what it's going to cost now to make it in Vietnam? How many Vietnam workers is this going to employ, and are they going to be working for like... $3/day?
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoFoxconn employs 1.2M people in China. And Pegatron, 120k. So... a lot of people.
- itake 4y agoApple Watch was China. I think MacBooks where partially made in the US, but I could be wrong. My understanding is the MacBook line (and everything other 'mature' product line) is heavily automated now.
- npn 4y agoMore like $20 a day. But its still dirt cheap compare to developed countries.
- MuffinFlavored 4y agofor how many hours a day, with what kind of PTO/benefits?
- npn 4y agoNice question! To earn $20 a day they certainly would need to work overtime. And there is almost no such thing as benefits.
- hn4000 4y agoNot only how poor and abundant the population is. 'Money is the first thing. Morals follow on.' (based on B. Brecht) From Wikipedia: Democracy Index 2021: Vietnam 131 / China 148 (Norway 1 - best / Afghanistan 167 worst) Freedom In The World 2021: Vietnam 167 / China 184 (Finland 1 - best / Syria 194 - worst)
- fzfaa 4y ago
- shp0ngle 4y agoVietnam is not that poor. Vietnam is MUCH richer than its direct neighbours, Laos and Cambodia. Thailand is richer though. The actual thing is not really poor population, but how easy is to build new factory there. Vietnam has the best thing for that - it is easy to build new stuff there, as the infrastructure exists; however, they absolutely ignore any environmental laws and just spew all waste into rivers and air. Look up Formosa Steel incident - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Vietnam_marine_life_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Vietnam_marine_life_disas... - huge disaster of a Taiwanese company, after which there were big protests. Communist government then arrested all protesters and put them to 20 years in prisons (for protesting against a foreign company!). Nobody protests about environmental waste now.
- rdsnsca 4y agoThe main criteria for every electronics company, singleing out Apple is just BS.
- coolspot 4y agoYes, but this particular news is about Apple.
- mountainb 4y agoIt is a good backup plan for sanctions against China and a blockade or war with Taiwan because of the port facilities, advanced infrastructure, and other advanced industry. For World War 3 it's not necessarily a great plan, but it's as good as any other plan for that scenario.
- coffee_beqn 4y agoVietnam is the most proven country at defeating a super power militarily.
- quickthrower2 4y agoTouche. And if they make the phones somewhere expensive they are guaranteed to go out of business instead of it being a risk.
- abudabi123 4y agoWestmoreland's Operation Fracture Jaw got canned by elite circle in politics and the rest is Rambo Hollywood history boomer tears in beers.
- coffee_beqn 4y agoI hadn’t heard of it. What a terrible plan.
- tunap 4y agoI suppose this means Wisconsin is SOL. https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/25/foxconn_wisconsin_factory/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/25/foxconn_wisconsin_fac...
- missedthecue 4y agoThey were never going to build Apple products there though. That was for LCD television components.
- ziddoap 4y agoI don't think the point they were making was about Apple products being built there, but that Foxconn continues to put their attention elsewhere with other projects.
- stingrae 4y agoFor Foxconn, making Apple happy is the most important thing they can do. It will always get priority over anything else.
- kube-system 4y agoFoxconn has 1.3 million employees, I don't think it's really that easy to divide their attention.
- tunap 4y agoSort of both points. They have a plant built and they have yet to put it to use. All the while, they are opening new factories elsewhere. From TFA: >Foxconn also reportedly considered using the site to make electric vehicles and other electronics, but nothing has come of any of its announcements.
- tunap 4y agoAnd now they're not making LCDs. Or, anything else there. While building new facilities where the labor is cheap, despite the PR grandstanding a few years back. Sounds to me like WI is SOL.
- ren_engineer 4y ago>Apple suppliers Luxshare Precision Industry and Foxconn lol this is a political move, they are just creating Vietnamese shell companies owned by their same Chinese suppliers to get some good PR.
- rjzzleep 4y agoIt's not a political move. Vietnamese manufacturing is cheaper than Chinese. Chinese labour has gotten expensive over time. EDIT: politics are definitely a welcome side effect, but not the main reason
- baybal2 4y ago
- alphabetting 4y agoWhy would Apple decide to build in Vietnam after secretly committing $275B to advance Chinese manufacturing? Western political heat seems most logical.
- thetinguy 4y agoBecause 0 Covid policies are leading to unpredictable and extended delays.
- scarface74 4y agoHow does Apple “secretly” commit to spending $275B? It couldn’t be too much of a secret if random HN posters know about it.
- alphabetting 4y agoit was secret for years until The Information reported it. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/report-apple-ceo-tim-cook-engineered-a-secret-275-billion-deal-with-china/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/report-apple-ceo-tim...
- nick9847 4y agoAnd the products will be more overpriced than ever.
- brailsafe 4y agoNot if you make money using them
- Rackedup 4y agoAnd ads are coming....
- threeseed 4y agoAds have been present on the App Store, News+ etc for years now.
- Rackedup 4y agoWith latest news, I was under the impression that they are adding a bunch more ads: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-aapl-set-to-expand-advertising-bringing-ads-to-maps-tv-and-books-apps-l6tdqqmg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...
- quickthrower2 4y agoLess underpriced perhaps?
- mgraczyk 4y agoA lot of comments here are criticizing Apple for chasing cheap labor. Ignoring for a second the fact that this has a lot more to do with geopolitics and hedging geopolitical risk, I think it's important to think more carefully about the impact of companies investing in developing economies. By and large, the factory work done by people in developing economies is dramatically better in terms of quality of life and safety than the agricultural work that they would be doing without economic development. It would be better if the factories were more often owned domestically (instead of owned by Chinese companies), but the actual workers are not suffering in the short term as a result of Apple bringing jobs. The complete opposite is true.
- latchkey 4y agoQuite a few of the factories are actually owned by Koreans... Vietnam is their cheap labor force.
- another_story 4y agoAnd Taiwanese
- tasubotadas 4y agoCapitalism is one of the biggest eradicators of poverty. 1B of people in China was lifted from poverty because of it. And once it's done with one poor country, it starts taking care of the others :)
- CameronNemo 4y ago.
- robin_reala 4y agoI’m no great defender of capitalism, but feudalism did a great job at that a long time before capitalism.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- supernova87a 4y agoI'm interested to know to what extent this is just assembly of parts imported from China, or whether the real control over things like the M1 chip assembly, secure element, logic board, etc. are also moved to Vietnam? Seems like that's the secret sauce / real proprietary stuff that tells you whether the high value is moving too. (or maybe that is not even in China either) And do they have the surrounding parts + engineering ecosystems that is so touted as why China is the place to get things built?
- wmf 4y agoApple Silicon is made in Taiwan.
- randall 4y agoWow. Is the geopolitical hedge there with Texas or something?
- droopyEyelids 4y agoOur Disaster Recovery Plan is still in the discovery stage
- hindsightbias 4y ago
- smachiz 4y agoTSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is the largest contract manufacturer of complex CPUs there is. They're building a massive fab in Phoenix.
- Poppys 4y agoIsn't dispersing a core business, that the global economy relies on, to other countries a bad move for Taiwan? If advanced micro chips are made in another country doesn't that mean China might be more likely to use a forceful invasion and other countries can say "Yes, this is terrible - but at least we still have our chips!"
- AYBABTME 4y agoI don't really see what the problem is with offshoring. If other people elsewhere want to work for cheaper, then it's fair competition. It's not like protectionism would work long term anyways. And in this particular case, Vietnam is more aligned with the US than China, geopolitically, so this makes a lot of sense.
- azinman2 4y agoBecause you slowly shift your economy out from underneath you and effectively give it away. In the process you lose the ability to have any of these core competencies yourself. In the end what’s the point of having cheaper products if no one has a job to buy them.
- pishpash 4y agoBut they don't need jobs to buy them, they get dollars printed for them to buy them. If one day the dollar can't be printed without tanking itself, they will also have the jobs that allow them to buy the products.
- sfvegandude 4y ago> In the process you lose the ability to have any of these core competencies yourself. Nonsense. The US could obtain the core competencies themselves and indeed will as globalization winds down. People will never stop coming to the US for opportunity.
- AYBABTME 4y ago> People will never stop coming to the US for opportunity. Is true _as long as the US continues to understand this_ and doesn't change its stance on immigration and business and open markets. The US will win as long as it's the country where the best of this world are invited and able to come and do their best work. On the other hand, I don't see China having any chance at beating the US on that front anytime soon. Mandarin is too hard to learn for immigrants, and the racism and lack of freedom is entirely unpalatable to most immigrants. Aside from finance types moving to Shanghai, I'm not sure who would want to move to China if they have the opportunity to move to the US instead. (well, I know many do, but let's just say the quantities are incomparable)
- gleenn 4y agoHow is no one mentioning that China is threatening Taiwan. If the US ends up in a war with China, suddenly most Apple products would have serious operations problems if not being shut off completely. Cheap labor isn't a bad reason, but this is also a hedge against the heating politics between the West and both Russia and China.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoIf the US and China end up going to war, Apple’s products would be the last of my worries.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cyberpunk 4y agoIf the US goes to war with China, I can imagine Apples supply chain problems won’t be very high on our priority lists…
- gleenn 4y agoNo, but it will be priority #1 for Apple, which is why they're opening other plants and not whoever you thin "us" is.
- threeseed 4y agoAlso based on recent analysis many countries e.g. China, South Korea have increased exports to Russia including dual use technologies which are prohibited under recent sanctions. This combined with upcoming war games involving China and Russia shows clearly where their allegiances lie. So the risk of China being economically punished is not insignificant and Apple is very likely to be caught in the cross-fire if it does happen.
- kelnos 4y agoI have a hard time blaming Southe Korea here. Russia and China are their literal neighbors. If China decided to invade SK, their relationship with the US wouldn't save them. Russia wouldn't have quite as much military success there right now (given their preoccupation in Ukraine), but it makes sense to keep them happy.
- ArrayBoundCheck 4y agoI wonder what Gavin Belson is up to. I'm thinking about the episode where Gavin opens up a plant in goldbriar north carolina (Not a real place)
- yrgulation 4y agoAt some point we should outsource our armies and perhaps even governments. If a real war starts we can use the services industry, unless we outsource that too. We’ll send the lawyers and software engineers in, and power our cardboard tanks with wood and steam. I was hoping the pandemic and the war in europe would teach us that electronics, particularly high end, should be relocated to allied countries at the very least.
- scarface74 4y agoYou’re ignoring the entire dependence on the worldwide supply chain. That’s like Cook making a show of “manufacturing Mac Pros” in the US for Trump when only final assembly was done here. He did the same dog and pony show in Great Brittain.
- yrgulation 4y agoWell thats the issue. The whole suite of dependencies needs to be moved back, except where impossible - i.e. minerals etc. Having moved all of this outside the free world we slowed down progress in our own countries. Imagine being forced to come up with cheaper alternatives at home where we’d be with robotics, automation and space mining today. Instead we finance countries that seek to challenge us.
- scarface74 4y agoWhat good does it do to move all of the dependencies except for the most important foundational dependencies?
- remarkEon 4y agoIs your assumption here that all minerals are distributed equally, or equally accessible?
- scarface74 4y agoI am saying just the opposite. Most of the easily accessible “rare minerals” are in countries that aren’t our allies.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- syngrog66 4y agoreducing China risk is wise
- iloveitaly 4y agoI wonder how long it will be until Apple is running their own fabs, or at least diversifies away from heavily relying on TSMC. Has anyone seen news to this effect?
- frakkingcylons 4y agoI think it's the last thing they would do themselves. Setting up and operating their own TSMC-level fabs would cost Apple: * tens of billions of dollars * at least 5 years of time * most of all: immense effort and focus that could be used elsewhere
- erichocean 4y agoApple is spending $275B to advance Chinese manufacturing.[0] They can easily afford 1/10th of that to build a fab that's ready in five years right here in the US if they wanted to. (Las Vegas is ideal, no natural disasters of any kind.) Hell, they could write a check and buy Intel outright. [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/report-apple-ceo-tim-cook-engineered-a-secret-275-billion-deal-with-china/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/report-apple-ceo-tim...
- cronix 4y agoLas Vegas is currently having their water coming from the Colorado River (and reservoirs fed by it) limited, along with several other states and Mexico. If I were a betting man, I'd bet it will get worse in the near future. https://www.ktnv.com/news/u-s-department-of-interior-declares-further-restrictions-on-colorado-river-water-supply https://www.ktnv.com/news/u-s-department-of-interior-declare...
- thankful69 4y agoI though we were going to move all those tech factories back home? I mean, we are literally paying for it, at least our taxes are.
- pedalpete 4y agoOutside Paywall - https://archive.ph/pUZc3 https://archive.ph/pUZc3
- azlev 4y agoSame manufacturers in different country. I can't see a big change here.
- iambateman 4y agoChina to not-China is a big deal.
- coffee_beqn 4y agoDon’t forget Foxconn itself is Taiwanese
- kube-system 4y agoThe big change is geopolitical. The US and Vietnam are on good terms.
- dijonman2 4y agoVietnam is the go to destination for stolen Apple equipment. Someone there is already an expert at unenrolling MDM, etc. Makes sense to move manufacturing capabilities there, they are a step ahead. Perhaps it will result in vulnerabilities being closed.
- stereoradonc 4y agoApple has never been upfront about the extent of manufacturing inside china and other countries.
- mulmen 4y agoIn my dad’s lifetime we went from fighting a bitter war with Vietnam to building our most popular consumer electronics there. I wonder what we will build in Afghanistan in my retirement years.
- simondotau 4y agoFor previous generations, you could say much the same thing about Germany and the engineering and automotive sectors. Afghanistan is an inhospitable place that doesn't have inherent qualities such as a skilled population, high population density, logistics channels, shipping ports, or a geography amenable to developing the above. They could become a major minerals exporter (there's believed to be a lot of lithium in Afghanistan, for example) but that would, at best, make Afghanistan more like nearby wealthy oil states.
- Gunnerhead 4y agoI appreciate your point of view. What about Iraq? What are your thoughts on that? Seems like it has a bit more going for it than Afghanistan.
- simondotau 4y agoTo be clear, I'm very much a layperson with absolutely no special knowledge or insight. I really don't know enough about Iraq to have an opinion. But what I do notice is that Germany, Japan, Korea and Vietnam were all able to break free from feelings of anger and grievance against past enemies. Iraq (and Afghanistan) are populations rife with religion-fuelled and religion-adjacent grievances, pointing internally and externally. Sadly I don't have optimism for change.
- ggm 4y agoIraq and Iran have massive domestic economies, and established tertiary education. I have no reason to believe graduates from Iraqi uni are any less capable than the Iranians who work with me, or who I know work in Engineering and Health fields all over Australia. There are good AF graduates too, but fewer. They have less resources to fund tertiary education.
- black_13 4y ago
- jakuboboza 4y agoUS companies are silently escaping China to limit effects of possible tariffs or even war. Imho this is a strategic move to ensure future.
- pm90 4y agoA convergence of many reasons, including the uncertainty caused by locking down entire cities. TBH its likely that it was a question of when not if this would happen. Will be interesting to see the geopolitical effects of a diversification of manufacturing capabilities. CCP wouldn’t be able to sustain the current export focused model.
- jakuboboza 4y agoChina demography is going way down. Within a decade they will lose 200 milion workers and gain 300 million retirees in the pool. That will force a strain on the system plus current mortgage issues and protests already pushing bankrupting cities and PRC to a brink of collapse. China is going down on its own behest.
- 88840-8855 4y agothis is rather to limit economic exposure to a war that the US is planning. as now the US war against Russia in the proxy war in Ukraine, Europe and especially Germany will be the main victim. The US foreign politics is the main evil in the world and the EU is still following the Americans. It is incredible. We must get rid of all American influence in Europe, ban US tech, ban US military, get rid of the US propaganda, brands, social media.
- actionfromafar 4y agoHere I thought the Ukraine was the main victim and Russia the perpetrator.
- 88840-8855 4y agoUkraine is just collateral damage in this proxy war. Not more.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sandstrom 4y agoStill a Chinese manufacturer… (Luxshare Precision Industry) If it had been a non-chinese company, it would have been a great move. Western companies will need to reduce their reliance on China in their supply chains.
- actionfromafar 4y agoIf Apple is playing 4D chess with China, we don't know what moves are possible at this time. This may have been the only acceptable move at this time.
- elzbardico 4y agoAnd the rest of the world would do better to reduce its dependence on the US Dollar as its reserve currency.
- eloisant 4y agoyes, both are true
- rmbyrro 4y agoThe world would do better reducing reliance on any fiat currency for reserve purposes.
- HeckFeck 4y agoA noble move for those willing to dare.
- roguas 4y agoWhy nobody does that? For me a lot of stuff is in the pudding, if something is great surely there would be one non-fiat backed country succeeding.
- thatguy0900 4y ago
- Lapsa 4y agogood plot setup for Forest Gump II
- ngcc_hk 4y agoBetter to have two not one communist state I guess.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoYou can buy a Coke from a kiosk inside the tomb complex of Ho Chi Minh :) Always found that very ironical.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoGood for Vietnam. I visited the country in 2016 and fell in love with it, going back two more times. I’ve never seen a more hardworking, yet friendly people. They deserve all the success in the world.
- tim333 4y agoSlightly off topic but a youtube "DIY man built his own yacht with scrap materials in just 90 days" https://interestingengineering.com/video/yacht-scrap-materials-90-days https://interestingengineering.com/video/yacht-scrap-materia... was cool and reminded me of the guys who fixed my scooter in Vietnam for about 30p a time.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoLots of Americans in Vietnam now. Vietnamese people have also seem to have embraced American culture wholeheartedly. The gastronomic results of the mix have been fantastic. Vietnamese food is already amazing but there are now a ton of food joints that use Vietnamese flavors and southern style bbq techniques for some truly spectacular results.
- __rito__ 4y agoComments such as this should be illegal. I have had Vietnamese, I have had BBQs. And I loved both. Now, my mouth is watering for BBQ with Vietnamese flavor.
- mike_d 4y agoI have seen some amazing work with my own eyes. Like buying a rusted farm implement from one vendor in a market and taking it to another to have it sharpened and getting back what was basically a brand new scythe. But the vast majority of these amazing "look what I built" videos from Vietnam are staged and are actually the work of production companies with teams of people. Here is an expose of the primitive building genre where this got its start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvk63LADbFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvk63LADbFc
- LatteLazy 4y agoLots of manufacturing has been moving to Vietnam (and similar countries) as China is finally running out of low cost labour. This has been happening for at least a few years, more likely a decade I think https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/06/18/is-vietnam-eating-into-china-s-share-of-manufacturing-pub-82094 https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/06/18/is-vietnam-eating-i...