“Apple CEO Tim Cook has been taking some heat lately over the company’s Made in China tech… Many have wondered why the hot selling product can’t be made in the U.S. instead,” Kenneth Rapoza reports for Forbes.
“Actually, a lot of the iPhone is already Made in the U.S.A.,” Rapoza reports. “A report written by three U.S. professors showed that only about ‘$10 or less in direct labor wages goes into an iPhone or iPad is paid to Chinese workers.'”
Rapoza reports, “The report points out that while the Apple products – including components – are manufactured in China, the primary benefits go to the U.S. economy because Apple continues to keep most of its product design, software development, product management, marketing and other high-wage functions in the U.S., not China. China’s role is more of an assembler.”
Read more in the full article here.
Under the headline “Apple set to expand presence in China,” Zhang Yuwei reports for China Daily, “The [iPhone] was designed by Apple engineers in the US, sourced with components from different parts of the world and is only assembled in China factories owned by the Taiwan-based company Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, also known as Foxconn Technology Group. One of the report’s authors, Jason Dedrick, a professor at Syracuse University, said that China makes very little money from these products.”
“Another of the report’s authors, Kenneth L. Kraemer, a professor from the University of California, said that most consumers simply don’t quite understand how global supply chains work in this case,” Yuwei reports. “‘They (people who think China’s role is bigger in the production of Apple products) focus only on the trade deficit with China, and therefore they think China has a bigger role. What they don’t understand is that China gets all sorts of input from other countries from Japan, the US, Malaysia and so on. So China’s contribution is really a small amount of labor,’ Kraemer said. ‘They think China’s role is bigger simply because they don’t understand how global supply chains work. They think everything from an iPad and iPhone is made in China rather than just shipped (components) and assembled there.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What we wrote last week stands taller with each passing day:
Overheard at FUD, Inc.:
Well, boys, those were some $%&@!# earnings. WTF are we going to do now? Apple’s isn’t just taking a bigger slice, they’re taking the whole $%&@!# pie!
There’s no new iPhone yet, so we can’t take something like attenuation and blow it all the $%&@!# out of proportion. There’s no new iPad, yet, so we can’t say that it’s so thin it cut off a little old lady’s arm in Sheboygan. We need something to give the public a least a little pause or we’re $%&@!# dead.
Hey, what about the old “Chinese slave labor” angle? Make those $%&@!# Jobsian perfectionists look like greedy $%&@!# evil overlords. Use their money and success against them. Ooh, I like it. I really like it.
Yeah, yeah, dummy, I know we all use the same Chinese company for assembly. And, yes, my little $%&@!#, I know they’re the best paid factory workers in China, because of Apple, no less. Don’t ever say that aloud again, you $%&@!#. Nobody cares about the facts. This is $%&@!# FUD, Inc.! All of our $%&@!# phones attenuate, too, you $%&@!# moron!
Perception is everything. Repeat it enough times and the $%&@!# suckers of the world lap it up like candy and start repeating it like parrots.
Quick, call up our friends at the paper!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
