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HDD Price Update: How the Thai Floods Have Affected Prices, 3 Months Later
New submitter jjslash writes "The hard disk drive supply chain was hit hard late last year when a series of floods struck Thailand. The Asian country accounts for about a quarter of the world's hard drive production, but thousands of factories had to close shop for weeks as facilities were under water, in what is considered the world's fourth costliest natural disaster according to World Bank estimates. That's on top of the human cost of over 800 lives. TechSpot has monitored a number of mobile and desktop HDDs to get a better overview of how the situation has developed in the last three months."
the Asian country accounts for about a quarter of the world's hard drive production, but thousands of factories had to close shop for weeks as facilities
"and" would be better as "but" implies that there's some sort of twist.
NewEgg is actually having sales on something besides "recertfied" drives.
That is what we are dealing with. From HDs to gas prices.
...large capacity drives are still at the same price as new ones the same size were in May last year... I'm not even going to look at prices for new drives at the moment.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
These people have no idea how to perform comparison of numbers. Incredible, written like a 10 year old.
I want to know how much its going to cost me to stash another TB worth of shit music, porn, and absolute garbage movies and tv shows god damnit!
About sales going down, while prices are going up. In hundreds of $
Those pesky customers, always making problems in free market. Market would do infinitely better without them.
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
The Boxing Day tsunami that killed more than a quarter of a million in southern Asia doesn't even rate in the top 20 according to the World Bank.
Maybe we should just store our data inside people, they're cheap apparently.
I see folks are expecting prices to get better, but just watch...
The initial price shock from speculation, panic-buying and hoarding may be coming down somewhat, but as the article alludes towards the end, the real impact might last throughout this year. There haven't been actual shortages on that many products so far, and when real shortages show up prices could stay high or go higher even with people cutting down as much as they can on drive purchases. (I know several popular and/or performance drives have sold out at PC makers, especially on their build-your-own websites, but most products never ran completely dry.)
Not to mention that while vendors have a lot of tactics for dealing with shortages, from back-stock to supply contract clauses entitling them to extra shipments of already manufactured inventory during crises, none of those tricks can't make new hard drives appear out of nowhere. The wiggle room such tactics enable will be drying up about now. Eventually even commodity drives could feel the squeeze as supplies on more and more drives threaten to run out entirely, despite the high prices. Because there's a lot of pent-up demand and it sounds like many of those plants still aren't nearing full capacity again.
Not only does it not represent savings, it screws everyone around the world.
Costs in well-protected nations such as the US and regions such as the EU wouldn't be stratospherically high. But don't let facts get in the way if you're going to defend the hellholes of the Third World.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The Thai floods also disrupted the supply chain for digital cameras. It would be interesting to know how things are doing on that front.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Prices are still high, but not as much as they were at the peak last November. Instead of 80-190% above the pre-flood prices, they are now 60-90% up.
This probably should've been part of the article summary.
It is not wise to keep all your eggs in one basket. But it is probably too much to expect common sense from the hard drive industry.
25% isn't "all the eggs". Not even close.
I think lots of people don't understand what happened with Newegg and other retailers. As someone explained it to me, a drive maker like WD has two kinds of customers:
1) big systems integrators like Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc., who order 100K drives at a time or more
2) Smaller customers (e.g. resellers) like Newegg, who order maybe 1k drives at a time. If someone wants just 5 drives they have to buy from a distributor or retailer like Newegg.
The very big customers will order their 100k drives at some preagreed price, delivered over (say) a 3-6 month interval per their production schedules. WD also plans its own production around such large orders. If they get (say) 1 million drives worth of such orders for 1Q2012, they'll (normally) set up their production to make (say) 1.3 million drives, deliver 1 million of them per the pre-agreed contracts, and put 0.3 million on the shelf for to fulfill "spot market" orders from places like Newegg. Depending on market conditions and what the competition is doing, the spot price will fluctuate above or sometimes below what the big OEM's pay.
When the Thai floods hit, production was cut from (say) 1.3 million to 0.9 million. There was no way to fulfill the agreed contracts, understandable due to the disaster, but they had to make the best effort they could, which meant hand ALL their drives over to OEM's while the likes of Newegg got nothing. So the prices of integrated systems actually didn't jump that much, but spot prices skyrocketed.
Now that we're a few months into the drama, the OEM's are in a new ordering cycle, they get to pay higher prices too, but WD gets to again allocate some drives to spot inventory. So we'll be seeing higher prices from Dell over the coming months, but some relief on the Newegg side (though the prices will still be higher than before, until around 3Q or 4Q from what I keep hearing).
Western Digital and Toshiba had factories in the flood zones whereas Seagate was mainly affected by the resulting supply constraints from business partners who were forced to halt production of related components. Among those was Nidec, which produces ~70% of the world's hard drive spindle motors.
You'd get the same thing in "first world hellholes", only that the reason for production going down would be due to strikes and general laziness rather than natural catastrophes. Which, in addition, happen in first world countries as well occasionally.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
Except for the fact that they aren't. You just want a pliant workforce that's not much more than slaves or sharecroppers. Have the US/EU market served by its own people, have the Third World served by its own people, and things like this don't happen.
Also, First World countries like the US respond faster and clean things up in a better manner. Never mind that such factories would be well-protected from such disasters before they happen.
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1) big systems integrators like Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc., who order 100K drives at a time or more
2) Smaller customers (e.g. resellers) like Newegg, who order maybe 1k drives at a time. If someone wants just 5 drives they have to buy from a distributor or retailer like Newegg.
The more reason to legislatively block such a restriction, and allow direct sales to cut the middleman/resellers out.
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Never mind that such factories would be well-protected from such disasters before they happen.
Does the name Fukushima ring a bell ?
There are other countries in the world other than Japan.
To avoid hurricane and tornado disasters in the US, one could manufacture in states like Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, or Pennsylvania if not for business hostility to worker respect.
In the UK, that can be done in flood-resistant parts of that country.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I wonder how many American or Worldwide corporations sat at there tables saying --well the clean up is not are problem, lets worry about saving ourselves till they figure it out-- instead of saying ---lets see what resources and money we can afford to give out to help not just the mining but to help that entire area and its people--.
I am glad someone wrote something besides the prices of hard drives, or digital cameras, or any other hardware..
I live in Thailand and ever since the floods, it has been used as an excuse to keep prices up. Examples of this would be beer, eggs, maama (think instant noodles) and also Hard Drives!
If you've ever lived here, you know people try to outsmart everyone and an example of this would be claiming shortages of hard drives is keep prices high even known their supply chain in Ayuthaya (where most of this shit comes from) has been bone dry and their factories operating at capacity for at least 6 - 8 weeks.
Mind you, when I go to my IT Square near where I live, only a few days ago Hard Drive prices are relatively back to normal, yet overseas, are still super expensive compared to normal. Also Nikon cameras and glass are normal prices here (most DX DSLR's and glass are made in Ayuthaya) and again OS it's still more expensive than normal.
This is a technical site for geeks and nerds, we simply don't need to cover that side of the story, it's been done elsewhere. The reality is, as nerds this is the important part to us. You can say we're emotionless or cruel or some other such word but those are the facts, it's a technical site, with technical news. If you want coverage of the other impact you need to look elsewhere.
Why aren't more factories in Colorado and Michigan then? Oh, because the workers there want to be paid an order of magnitude better than their "hellhole" counterparts, which... wait for it... would jack up the end price for the product. There's a reason these things are being manufactured there in the first place.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
I think that's needlessly critical. Of course there are great human disasters which don't fall under the umbrella of /. Just because this happened to be one which also has a major affect on the tech industry, doesn't mean the humane part of this is any less tragic. Still, people come to /. for tech news, and this is an interesting analysis on how the price of the drives have been affected, and that is what /. should report.
Lumping everybody together as basement-dwelling cold-hearted bastards who only care about cheap hardware is just as narrow-minded as you claim people reporting/reading this are. In fact, from my experience it seems that people reading /. are often more aware of international social issues than average.
yeah, they should have built their factories in Queensland or New South Wales. or the UK...it's been at least a few years since they had a major flood.
after all, everyone knows that floods in predominantly white countries don't destroy factories due to the superior racial characteristics of the geography. and in QLD or NSW a bushfire is sure to come along soon and dry everything out.
So what was the technical aspect of this story? Nothing? Right. It was already covered elsewhere, whether it be political, non-political, or every news-site under the sun, and every other technical site under the sun. Take your sanctimonious ass elsewhere if that's so much of a problem.
But if you want to argue 'human rights' and 'fair wages' might I remind you that back in 'early days' of North America, Europe shipped all of their industry here. Including all of their child based mills, and basically slavery to do their dirty work. I'm sure you know what happened already, well maybe you don't. Industry exploded and there hasn't been a time of industrial, personal, or monetary growth seen since.
Along with it there was no shortage of horror stories, like little timmy's and janes getting sliced in half, or the brutal 20 hour days in the foundries for children. Or well regular workers either. But hey, look at where we are now.
Om, nomnomnom...
Among those was Nidec, which produces ~70% of the world's hard drive spindle motors.
Single supplier, but not single site. Their web site says they have plants for spindle motors in Thailand, China, Indonesia, The Philippines and Vietnam. True, the 6 plants listed are all in Thailand but the implication that 70% of the drive motors are made in Thailand is false.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
stupid PC wank
Freedom for thee, but not for me?
It wouldn't jack up the prices much more than 30% at most.
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Economics and government coordination to disaster, not race are what make countries like Australia and the US, along with regions like the UK better at disaster response. That, and it helps to have some actual regulations to mitigate damage from said disasters, something unheard of in places like Thailand.
What I am suggesting is that dictatorial regimes such as Thailand, China, and Vietnam, as well as corrupted regimes such as India, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico would rather cut corners and freedoms so that they do not offend business.
Besides, arent hard disk prices saner in Australia?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Insightful? what a joke. We read slashdot for tech news, if i want to read about how X people died or X people got raped or other miserable crap id read the bbc or whatever.
Slavery advocate marked Insightful - Slashdot at its best.
HAHAPED to all of you, lads!
What? I agree that Slashdot sometimes ignores stuff that matters a lot, but this was covered, and there were a bunch of followup posts on Slashdot too.
If you are suggesting that people on Slashdot don't know about this event, you are delusional.
Also, I'm not going to take a bike ride in -26C, but if you want to take one in your cozy first world climate, be my guest.
, it's a technical site, with technical news.
So innocent.
This is a site that's about pageviews. Anything they can force, through any form of convoluted wordplay, into "geek" news that will generate the pageviews will be put out.
Every business is in the business of making money. What they *do* to make the money is always secondary.
While you have a point about getting a life, this is a (sometimes arguably) tech website/forum. So on here expect to find people whining about tech stuff.
Given how little actual human labor goes is required for a lot of these products, and you get to save shipping around the world, the costs don't go up as much as you might think.>/p>
Plus, with more people in your market area working, you sell more product.
It's not done due to executive psycopathy and because the ROI takes more than 3 months to show up.
Or you know, something smart that has been taught for centuries...
Build on the high ground.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So why did you (or your predecessor) choose to locate the factories there?
You are CFO of an electronics company, right?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
One slight flaw: it's already been built on.
And I live in in Holland, you insensitive clod!!!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yes, but what would happen if Godzilla laid waste to all of south-east Asia? See? No foresight at all!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Seagate had almost record profits this Quarter. WD did VERY good despite the flood.
Looks like the only one hurt was consumers, Corporations made out like bandits.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
An order of magnitude is more than 30%. :)
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
I cannot speak for hard disks in particular, but in general everything that can be produced by hand is produced by hand in countries where labor costs are cheaper than machines.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
-26 in holland? Gimme a break. That's some windchill number of statistical anomaly.
what’s the betting though that 100% of the motors produced in Thailand go to the HDD manufacturing facilities there, and there isn’t much spare capacity at their other sites to divert supply Thailand to .
Generalizations and assumptions, Slashoogle at it's best. See http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
Unless you're talking about a laptop, upgrading to a discrete GPU after three months isn't much of a WTF
A lot of people are talking about a laptop, even if you don't plan to take it on the road. You might just want one computer that can be more easily carted back and forth between the desk and the entertainment center (to use for big-screen gaming or as an HTPC for free Hulu), or a computer with a built-in UPS.
Why aren't more factories in Colorado and Michigan then?
Terrible access to transportation limits export capacity. The only way to get anything out of those states reliably is by rail 1000 miles to a reliable port. Michigan produces a lot of iron and coal because it's physically located there, but shipping is essentially shut down all winter.
Sure, there's a labor cost, but it's no accident that all those big, Asian centers of production are shoreside cities with huge port facilities. Sure, there's a labor cost, but do you have any idea how expensive it is to heat a 200,000 square foot factory when it's -10 oC outside?
Ha Dou Ken!
Now you know where that fireball that hit you last week came from.
Quantum Fireball indeed!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
...but what is the parent poster?
Try re-reading what I just said, since I had stated something that would deny them that avenue of jackassery.
Reasonable and non-discriminatory as determined by an un-influenced end-user would block the "go-away price".
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*or
let me contrast the headline with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami
shashdot never reported this; the death toll was hundreds of times larger. slashdot didnt give a shit because it wasnt tech news; i sadly respect that.
And what's this? http://news.slashdot.org/story/04/12/26/1437228/quake-and-tsunami-devastate-south-asia
might i suggest instead that we crawl out of our basements,
You first. But don't forget to take your medication.
Wider availability of product != your insult.
I'm not asking for brick-mortar. I'm only cutting out the middlemen that have largely made things worse. But don't let that get in the way of your politically charged statements.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I cant make an argument, but I like to use insults instead.
Sorry, grandparent poster. but I'm the true idiot here.
We know that Apple is able to make some special deals with their suppliers due to them paying in advance or something like that, what I'd like to know: is anything known if (I suspect no, cause Mac prices seem stable) and if not, why they aren't affected by this?
You never traveled outside the place you live in? Must be American I guess?
There's a flaw with that argument - it's easier for them to collect on the insurance and charge absurd sums to rebuild and retool than to do the job properly the first time.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I can't make an actual argument, but I can sure throw invective at people for questioning manufacturers practices.
Their prices are already sky-high.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
An order of magnitude is more than 30%. :)
Obviously, but I'm not sure what point you're tying to make with that response. He wasn't implying that his claimed "30%" figure was the same as your "order of magnitude" increase. You both made differing claims with no evidence to back them up, so all that we can say is that the two of you disagree and it's unclear who (if either) is right.
The portion of hard drive selling price due to the wages of the final assembly line workers is not 100%. Not even close.
Could I convince you to run for president of the U.S. please?
Well, considering that I went to check your posting history because of that number, it shouldn't be that hard to figure where I'm from.
Why would I need to be the CFO of an electronics company to know there's not a lot of labor required in modern electronics.
Ever seen a pick and place robot? It's a wonder to behold.
Since the U.S. isn't one of those countries, I would assume that a factory here would use more machines.
Yes, *if* a factory is opened in the US, it would probably use more machines
But the question is why would or should they build a factory in the US?
It certainly isn't because US labor is superior, since hey - a US factory would probably use more machines than people ;)
Because they would like for their customer base not to shrink to nothing? So that the foreign factories don't one day say screw you, we're in business for ourselves now? Because they're tired of genuine counterfeits (off the books production sold direct)?
Otherwise, it's up to government to encourage/require it in the interests of our society and national security. Corporate charters already stipulate that the corporation's existence must be in the public interest, so we have ethical standing to insist on this.
Alternatively, we set minimum pay requirements on the foreign factories as a condition of import so that the 3rd world actually gets it's economy bootstrapped rather than just exploited. They then become a new customer base and so help spur demand for labor.
Next alternative, we implement the basic income so that increasing unemployment and/or stagnant wages in the U.S. cause less harm here at home.
Because they would like for their customer base not to shrink to nothing?
Business keep their customer bases from shrinking by making products, HDD in this case, people want to buy.
How would making HDDs in US make them better? I mean, sure a "Made in USA" label probably has some value to it, but I don't think it's enough to justify moving back to the US (if it was worth it, I think they'd be doing it already)
So that the foreign factories don't one day say screw you, we're in business for ourselves now?
That would be a good reason if I have nothing and are trying to start a new business, or maybe if I'm playing the stock market...
...but these are established companies here, and we're talking about building factories which would, hopefully, last for years. They need more than just a hunch that "one day" something bad might happen to act.
Because they're tired of genuine counterfeits (off the books production sold direct)?
Are they really tired of it? They don't seem to be willing to move out of Asia any time soon. Instead, they're working with governments over at Asia to clean themselves up (which is a lot cheaper than moving their manufacturing back to US)
Otherwise, it's up to government to encourage/require it in the interests of our society and national security. Corporate charters already stipulate that the corporation's existence must be in the public interest, so we have ethical standing to insist on this.
Alternatively, we set minimum pay requirements on the foreign factories as a condition of import so that the 3rd world actually gets it's economy bootstrapped rather than just exploited. They then become a new customer base and so help spur demand for labor.
That still doesn't make it more appealing to set up factories in the US. A corporation could just close down (its owners running away with the riches), or move to another country with less restrictions.
Next alternative, we implement the basic income so that increasing unemployment and/or stagnant wages in the U.S. cause less harm here at home.
Erm... how would that bring the factories back to US?
Never mind that such factories would be well-protected from such disasters before they happen.
Try protecting ANYTHING from an EF-5 tornado, or a class 3 hurricane, or a magnatude 7 earthquake. There is no place in the US not in danger of natural disaster. Someone said Colorado, do you have any idea how bad it will be when the megavolcano in their back yard blows up? Nobdoy west of the Mississippi river is likely to survive.
The problem was putting all their eggs in one basket. Same with the tsunami in Japan. If you're building 3 US factories, put one on the east coast, one on the west coast, and one in the midwest. If you're shipping worldwide, put one in each continent.
Free Martian Whores!
Storage is still dirt cheap.
(Insert annoying Old Fart anecdote about expensive, tiny hard disks and walking to the computer store in a blizzard to go buy one.)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
You do know that jobless (and perhaps homeless) people do not normally buy hard drives, right? And that people with good jobs and disposable income often do?
hat still doesn't make it more appealing to set up factories in the US. A corporation could just close down (its owners running away with the riches), or move to another country with less restrictions.
You must not have read all the way to the end of the paragraph. Either that or you didn't realize that rising labor demand eventually makes building U.S. factories filled with U.S. workers a desirable move.
Erm... how would that bring the factories back to US?
It doesn't, it mitigates the economic effects of not bringing the factories back to the U.S.
but the relevant Bash.org quote is here:
http://bash.org/?98
from a different article:
Once formatted in Windows, the original 240GB is converted to 224GiB, though Windows shows this as 224GB, so it seems like 7% of the original capacity has been lost. With an estimated retail price of $510, the SSD 520 240GB costs $2.10 per gigabyte, which is a poor value even for a high-performance SSD.
Do they not understand the 1000 vs 1024 that drive marketers use to inflate the numbers?!?!
That still doesn't make it more appealing to set up factories in the US. A corporation could just close down (its owners running away with the riches), or move to another country with less restrictions.
Given how the US is quite the superpower, it wouldn't take much to thwart both. The US government just has to be willing to do it.
That, and there's economic demand to back such a measure should it be on the table.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Someone said Colorado, do you have any idea how bad it will be when the megavolcano in their back yard blows up? Nobdoy west of the Mississippi river is likely to survive.
It isn't stopping the existing interest in electronics over there. That, and despite being the state that exterminated unions, has sane labor laws in it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If they can allocate for resellers, they already have that huge warehouse.
Your argument isn't even reasoned or thought out. All you're doing is trying to put a political spin on the subject.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If they can allocate for resellers, they already have that huge warehouse.
They do not "allocate" for resellers.. and as such do not need huge warehouses.
They MANUFACTURE for resellers. The reseller first negotiates and signs a contract and THEN the devices get manufactured and delivered by the date(s) specified in the contract.
You truly are showing stellar ignorance of manufacturing, business in general, and critical thinking. Its a fucking trifecta of liberal bullshit reasoning.
I am not putting a political spin on the subject. I am pointing out that liberal rhetoric instead of well informed and reasoned thought supported by facts dominates your argument. You are an empty-headed liberal and thats all there is to it. You didnt even know that manufacturers dont bother making products that arent already sold to a reseller or distributor! What a liberal dipshit... pretending to know shit as usual.
"His name was James Damore."
If you actually go to a Chinese factory you'll find the layout is something like this
1) 1% of the space is automated. There are pick and place machines, wave soldering machines and so on.
2) The other 99% is production lines. There are migrant workers from rural areas doing unskilled labour assembling things. There are also lots of them doing sorting - i.e. testing things and sending the bad ones back for rework. The rework is all manual too. Now my guess is that sorting and rework is what most of them are working on.
Now at this point you'll wonder - why is there so much rework going on? Actually it is often because the Brand - i.e. the end customer - put the product into production too early. So the process only works say 90%. So to manufacture you need to build the machines and test them and send back the 10% for rework. In a high wage country this would be a catastrophe. In a low wage one it's not too bad. So if you're a large and incompetent first world company, low wage is the way to go.
Incidentally if you're wondering why loading another OS works so poorly on a netbook it is because this process very tightly ties hardware and software. Sometimes hardware bugs are fixed in software and vice versa. So long as you use the OS the machine was designed for - and I don't just mean "Windows or MacOS" here, I mean "Windows 7 SP1 or later with KB245386 and KB245387 installed but not Windows 8" or "OS X 10.7.3 or 10.7.4" - it will work. If you load Linux or OS-X onto a machine which was not intended to run it, you basically have to do this yourself. Actually if you downgrade Vista to XP or upgrade Vista to Windows 7 it would be just the same.
You can see this here
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/foxconn-snubs-linux-users/2292
The ACPI tables were for Vista, XP, older Windows and Linux. Only the Windows ones were correct. Probably the Linux one was inherited from another project but not updated. The board only supported Windows officially. Actually Linux claims to be Windows to ACPI anyway
It's even worse with netbooks and a lot of notebooks since they pre-load an OS and only support that particular pre loaded version.
If you want to use hardware with a particular OS and have it work out of the box, buy hardware that officially supports that OS.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The solution is to either fix your design or increase pricing by 10% until you can get it fixed. As a last resort, ship the rework to Mexico (much cheaper than shipping around the world) in large batches.
I'm all too aware of hardware errata. I have done firmware and drivers and have had to work around way too many bugs.
I have also seen the opposite where Linux was officially unsupported but had excellent workarounds in it's drivers already while the officially supported Windows driver just barely got the device functional (or not).
The solution is to either fix your design or increase pricing by 10% until you can get it fixed. As a last resort, ship the rework to Mexico (much cheaper than shipping around the world) in large batches.
Well if you make stuff in China, you're not shipping it round the world for rework.
Don't get me wrong - I used to work for companies that made stuff in China and I basically hate the place almost as much as I hate its government. If I ever get to the point where I'm manufacturing hardware I'd do it in Taiwan and not do it until it was ready. Interestingly Asus do manufacture some high end stuff in Taiwan. It's the low end stuff that is done in China or Malaysia.
Then again I'm aiming to build low volume, high margin stuff with rather relaxed design cycle times. So I can afford to manufacture in a high wage country.
If I were making zillions of netbooks with highly compressed design cycle times and hoping to make a few percent on each one I could not. But doing that really sucks.
As a matter of fact there's a lot to be said for the US. Or somewhere in Eastern Europe like Bulgaria. I know in Sweden a lot of people got their PCBs made in Bulgaria.
I.e. the solution is to move to a product that is high margin enough you can make it somewhere civilized.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Well if you make stuff in China, you're not shipping it round the world for rework.
You're shipping that 10% plus the other 90% around the world instead of shipping 10% to the next country over and back.
In exchange, you can be more certain that there aren't any 'extra' runs being sold on the gray market driving your support costs up and your reputation down.