Apple Products Once Made In US, Now Made In China

Foxconn Technology, which assembles iPhones in China, was flooded with applicants at a 2010 job fair. — PHOTO: CHINA DAILY

(CHINA DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured in other countries.

Why can’t that work come home, President Barack Obama asked Apple’s Steve Jobs at a dinner in California last February.

‘Those jobs aren’t coming back,’ Mr Jobs reportedly said. It is not just a matter of wages being lower outside the United States. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that ‘Made in the USA’ is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

One former executive described how Apple relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

Straits Times