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China to Be Laptop Leader
prostoalex writes "IMS Research says that by the end of the year People Republic of China might become world's biggest laptop manufacturer. The plants will be largely owned by Taiwanese manufacturers, though. Taiwan is current #1."
I [don't yet] see [too] many "Made in China" laptops at the stores here in Canada.
That's beacuse companies don't like to advertise that fact. Companies often outsource their production; and as long as they do some basic testing, who will know the difference?
I don't know if this is still the case, but at one point IBM was outsourcing the production of its low-end laptops to Acer; Acer is one of the companies investing in mainland China.
IBM laptops aren't going to be labelled "Made in China" any time soon, but they could certainly have been made there.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
"Personally, I won't be getting one of these laptops from China"
Actually, all of Apple's notebooks are made in Taiwan by "Quanta Computer Inc." and "Eslitegroup Computer System". They may very well soon be made in China, if it is cheaper to produce them there.
Apple may represent "quality" to many people, but the reality is that the're made by the same companies as every other computer. The chips are made by Motorola/IBM/TSMC (vs. AMD/Intel/TSMC for PCs), and the drives/LCD screens/keyboards/cases are likely made by the same corporations.
ODM links
I think Apple powerbooks are now made by Compal.
This is OT, but it deserves a response.
It's not just the parts, but how they're put together that makes a product well designed. The fact is, the quality of components that go into making a Renault and a BMW and not that different. However, in most cases the BMW has had better initial design, so that the parts work together better. Stresses, tensions, component placement, etc all work in harmony. Or at least better than in Renaults (not that Renaults are bad cars). That's why people pay more for Beemers (or at least partly - if the build was crap, the brand's reputation wouldn't be that good).
Similarly, the amount of thought and design that goes into a Powerbook versus something like a Dell Latitude means that although the HD and memory and all the other commodity component parts are the same, the design of the cases and where these components are placed go into giving Apple some of the best built laptops in the industry.
-- james
ya, and the cheap labor helps too...
Do you think China would be as popular a place to manufacture things in if it had salary laws similar to the US?
Granted, there are many things that give
China a strong hold in the 'made in X' market, but not having to pay each worker the equvilent of 6-7 US Dollars an hour has to be a huge factor.
Nice to read some posts by someone who obviously knows China.
That being said, I'd disagree that its the rural migrants are sopping up assembly-line jobs with the ODMs and that this is driving outsourcing to China. First of all, those guys go into construction, retail, and other kinds of jobs which don't require things like clean rooms. People in the US leap to the assumption that labour costs explain everything because of the dominance of the neoclassical economic paradigm, but realistically if this was just about labour there would be a hell of a lot more development in inland and northern China than there is now. Suzhou isn't exactly a haven for cheap wages the way... Fujian is, for instance.
I think its also a popular misconception that labour costs in China are significantly cheaper than elsewhere -- say parts of Indonesia, Malaysia. The difference is an easy investment channel from Taiwan (no language barrier), and ready access to the mainland market. China still has significant tariffs on imported laptops. The bulk of these might phase out over time in line with China's accession to the WTO, but I wouldn't count on them disappearing completely. If you want to sell your products in China there are still a lot of incentives to produce them there....
I spent some time in China last year and I was shocked by how some of these "slave laborers" live. One guy I got to know works for a construction company, he gets a base pay of about US$100 a month. With overtime and performance bonuses, he can earn an additional US$100 in a good month. How does this guy live? Well, he OWNS a very nice 2 bedroom apartment with hardwood floors, fully equiped modern western-style bathroom and kitchen (w/ hot shower, washer and dryer, dish washer, refrigerator, microwave, etc), good looking furniture, DVD player, 30+ inch flat screen TV, computer, stereo system, digital camera, and separate cell phones for him and his wife. And he's able to have all this while putting his wife through law school. You may ask how can this guy possibly afford all this? Answer is simple, while Chinese made stuff is cheap in the US, they are much much cheaper in China! Regular prices for goods is often a fraction of what they cost in the US. If you know where to look, you can get even lower prices. And if you wait for a sale or a price war, which happens quite frequently considering how many manufacturers there are for any type of goods in China (there are like 100+ TV makers in China). Food is also incredibly cheap in China. You can have a full meal at a neighborhood noodle shop for little more than a quarter. If you cook at home, the cost is basically negligible.
The moral of all this is that conditions for these "slave laborers" are nothing like what Americans imagine. These "slave laborers" own 230+ million cell phones, live decent lives, and have enough left-over to sent money home to support entire extended families. OTOH, living conditions for the 900 million peasants in rural China is really really bad, and that's why there seems to be an endless stream of people competing eagerly to become "slave laborers".
A couple of weeks ago Digitimes was reporting (registration required) that by the end of the year over 50% of motherboards will be produced in China.
Any proof for child or slave labor there?
You're kidding right?
Fans of Chinese slave labor can buy apparel here. If you're not a fan you might consider supporting legislation such as this. If you don't know enough about the topic to decide whether or not you're a fan, do some reading. My government has. Well, enough to have formed a policy on the matter. If you're all about self-reliance, just feed the term Laogai into Google.
Enjoy your Chinese laptop.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!