Apple might have what’s necessary to start building iPhones at home, report claims

[dgstorm]

Everything these days is made in Asia it seems, and the iPhone is no exception. The device might be designed in sunny California but it is assembled overseas. And we’re not even bringing into discussion other devices that are surely built in China or Taiwan or Thailand. It probably makes sense, since the work force over there comes at a pretty cheap price.

But now, with all the record breaking and massive profit hanging over its head, Apple might actually afford to start constructing its devices right here in the United States. Or at least a report by the University of Manchester seems to think so.

The 25-page paper entitled “Apple Business Model: Financialization across the Pacific” was written by a research team at the Center for Research on Socio-Cultural Change. It mostly revolves around the relationships between Apple and Foxconn, and the future of job opportunities and salaries in the Asian world.

According to public information released by Apple, the Cupertino company assembles an iPhone 4S for $178.45 in China. The University of Manchester predicted that if Apple chose to build the devices in the US the price would jump to $337.01. It’s quite a jump but considering that the full retail price of a new iPhone is usually around $649, Apple would still be getting back quite a fair amount of revenue.

So is this a valid hypothesis? Probably not. Apple is a company whose profit oriented and they have a good thing going in China.

by Radu

Source: Research suggests Apple could afford to build iPhones in the US | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

 

[Skull One]

It's a shame that paper is so in credibly flawed. The assembly costs are NOTHING in the grand scheme of things. Once that paper takes into account the following, then it might have some validity.

The EPA regulations on the following, in the US, are the real issues:
1) Rare earth mineral mining.
2) Lithium Ion manufacturing.
3) PCB manufacturing.
4) Aluminum processing.
5) Glass processing.
6) Plastic processing.
7) Power plants.

China is willing to destroy their land to get these contracts. There isn't a US city willing to do it anymore.

So that means you have to ship almost every sub component from China to the US. Why would they use fleets of cargo ships to bring the parts for 1 million iOS devices for assembly when they can use 1 ship to bring the 1 million finished devices here?