India eats China's lunch in US smartphone manufacturing For the first time, India has overtaken China as the top manufacturing hub for smartphones shipped to the US. The latest figures from analyst house Canalys show that the number of smartphones Apple assembled in China dropped from 61 percent in Q2 last year to 25 percent in the second quarter of this year. Stepping in to plug …
"somewhere in Africa?"
I suspect the infrastructure, resources and population of the African continent isn't going to make that scale of manufacturing viable.
If Bangladesh can keep its collective head above water it might be viable at least from the population point of view. Their textile and clothing industries whose output is a globally significant source of fast fashion waste that ironically ultimately ends up polluting the African environment.
Of course the assumption is that once our deranged politicians and their billionaire supporters finally get their way, there would be sufficient customers to support the mass production of >USD 2,000 phones.
>Of course the assumption is that once our deranged politicians and their billionaire supporters finally get their way, there would be sufficient customers to support the mass production of >USD 2,000 phones.
I never thought anyone would buy a $1000 phone, but here we are today…
The basic problem is profit, cost being a component of that. Companies like Apple have gotten fat on large margins fuelled by cheap manufacturing. So really the debate is about a distribution of wealth, and different countries have different attitudes.
In Japan the most important thing is for your company to be socially useful, profits come second. That’s how they’ve managed to hang on to so much manufacturing, and why you see the boss on TV giving a grovelling bow if the company fouls up. Can you imagine a US company operating on the basis of truly serving its domestic customers and fellow citizens above its owners’ own interests? Not that Japan can afford to make phones domestically either, which illustrates the scale of the challenges that exists doing so in the USA.
If even the Japanese can’t manage it, the US certainly cannot without some sort of political revolution and rebasing of global societal and economic norms far more extensive than is happening.
There are plenty of resources and people in Africa. Furthermore, around three quarters of global population growth in the remainder of this century will happen in sub-Saharan Africa (with the rest being in the Middle East and North Africa). The rest of the world will see stable or declining population.
Nigeria has a population of about 225 million (6th in the world by population), and Ethiopia 112 million (15th). Both are well ahead of Vietnam, who have 100 million, and Vietnam is a major manufacturing centre for smart phones. Tanzania has about the same population as Thailand (and the UK and France), Kenya and Sudan have more people than South Korea. All of these African countries have rapidly growing populations. Nigeria for example are on current trends projected to have a population of around 900 million by the end of the century.
As for resources, well Africa's main export is resources.
What they are lacking are good infrastructure (particularly reliable electricity), education, and above all, good government. Those are actually the main reasons why your cheap tat isn't being made in Africa today.
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