
Samsung ends mobile phone production in China - gok
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec-china/samsung-ends-mobile-phone-production-in-china-idUSKBN1WH0LR
======
latchkey
Samsung already makes most of their phones in Vietnam. Not a huge difference,
other than the lack of tariffs.

[https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/04/12/why-samsung-of-
sou...](https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/04/12/why-samsung-of-south-korea-
is-the-biggest-firm-in-vietnam)

~~~
hardwaresofton
I wonder why more producers haven't made this move? If Vietnam is there as far
as infrastructure goes and they have the skilled/unskilled labor why is this
not a more popular move.

Also when we say "make" I assume we mean "assembles".

Somewhat anecdotally I recently purchased a laptop and tried to find one that
_wasn 't_ made in China and it was nigh on impossible.

~~~
latchkey
I'm a tech expat living in Vietnam (from Bay Area) for the last 4 years. This
is a really loaded question. You have to look into the politics of the VN
govt, especially related to the fact that it is on the northern end of VN,
closer to Hanoi... which has different politics than in the south.

I've been to Hai Phong, which is the city in the north near the China border
where most of this commerce happens. It is fascinating to see how big the
houses are there. If you drive along the road to the airport it is literally
filled with old men riding their nice shiny new bicycles and exercising by the
side of the road.

The tariffs definitely have people looking into Vietnam a lot more. I've
driven (motorbike) the dirt backroads near the Chinese border where there is
nothing but trees and mountains. There are literally trucks brining goods into
and out of Vietnam (illegally) on hastily constructed dirt roads. You can see
it in google maps even. I've seen how people have strung cables over rivers
between China and Vietnam to ferry goods back and forth. So yea... it is
happening, it just isn't hitting the news much. It is also happening in
Cambodia and Laos. Look into the roads China is building and how Sihanouk is a
literal Chinese eco disaster.

Fascinating times...

~~~
AFascistWorld
You can pay something like 50 RMB for them to motorbike you through the
jungles into Cambodia or Loas (illegally) without any questions asked.

There are also illegal but protected casinos near the Vietnam-China border
entry, that only allow in Chinese nationals.

~~~
latchkey
I did it myself. Even stood on the literal border of Vietnam and China. ;-)
That is China in the distance and VN is building a wall of some sort. The road
that you see is filled with trucks carrying stuff. Last picture is one of the
dirt border backroads I was driving on... pretty epic trip.

I also drove into Laos near the north side and all through it as well. The
amount of Chinese influence in Laos is overwhelming.

[https://imgur.com/a/WGWv9kr](https://imgur.com/a/WGWv9kr)

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thrwweasdfa243
Note - Vietnam has an FTA with India (unlike China), and so this also helps it
fight back against Chinese smartphone players that are currently dominating in
India AND it also works as a bargaining chip with the Indian govt. for tax
incentives. IIRC they moved their television assembly back to Vietnam in
retaliation for some failed deal last year.

Might be a good idea too, the Indian state is a moronic rent-seeking state
whose sole purpose it'd often appear is to run a leaky incompetent "welfare
state" simply in order to support of its political masters.

~~~
bnt
They have 1 billion people, they are a market who can do whatever they like,
in their own right.

~~~
oblio
Debatable. Money is just as important and right now India's GDP is comparable
to UK's GDP. And the UK only has about 65 million people.

------
pdm55
If you are interested, here are some background articles about Apple's
assembly plant in Zhengzhou, China [https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-
economy/article/2188162/f...](https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-
economy/article/2188162/foxconn-tale-slashed-salaries-disappearing-benefits-
and-mass) [https://www.businessinsider.com.au/apple-iphone-factory-
foxc...](https://www.businessinsider.com.au/apple-iphone-factory-foxconn-
china-photos-tour-2018-5?r=US&IR=T)
[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-
iphone-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-iphone-china-
foxconn.html)

Why my interest? I taught Maths (in English) in Zhengzhou for a couple of
years and constantly wondered where my students could find employment, so I
recently searched online and found these articles about the iPhone assembly
plant there. Some things I learnt: assembling iPhones is boringly repetitive,
basically just install the same one screw all day, so workers only last about
a year; the impetus came from Terry Gou, the Taiwanese billionaire founder of
Foxconn; and, in the past, to be purchased by the Chinese, such "foreign
goods" had to be shipped to Hong Kong, then turned around and imported back
into China, whereas Foxconn negotiated virtual export/import at the touch of a
button. The iPhone story, by putting my former Zhengzhou students in the
"centre" of the US, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong tensions, made those tensions
more "engaging" for me.

And yes, I am concerned about the plight of the Uighurs. I think the
repression of that group is directly linked to the 2014 knife killings at
Kunming railway station,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack).
Immediately after that attack, metal detecters were set up at railway stations
in Zhengzhou. And I noticed some Muslim businesses disappearing from the
streets.

~~~
dang
This was originally a reply to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21143687](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21143687).

------
GeekyBear
Didn't China encourage consumer boycotts of South Korean products after South
Korea agreed to put an anti-ballistic missile system into place on their soil?

Samsung very quickly went from a popular product with consumers to an also
ran.

It seems odd to ignore this as a factor in Samsung's decision making.

~~~
HeavenFox
Overall, the rise of domestically-made Android phones are probably the biggest
reason of their demise. But if we have to point at one specific instance,
arguably it’s the Note 7 debacle. Samsung completely mishandled the situation
- they refused to recall the devices in China despite doing so in other
countries, and when some customers posted pictures of their burned phone,
Samsung threatened them. And of course consumers voted with their wallet, and
nowadays it’s rare to see Samsung phones in China.

------
shaneprrlt
"Rising labor costs", what happens in the future when the world is fully
developed and these co's run out of developing countries with cheap labor to
exploit?

~~~
bilkoo
By exploit, do you mean offering them jobs that pay higher than local average?
Or that developing countries have weaker institutions for labor laws?

~~~
frank_nitti
Not OP, but probably just the dictionary definition of the word "exploit", to
use a resource for one's own benefit. If there are business models that cannot
function without this particular resource, what will become of them?

They aren't paying "higher than local average" out of the goodness of their
hearts. If they were, shareholders wouldn't be too happy.

------
sjg007
Apple should too

~~~
blackflame7000
Apple just recently announced their making macbooks in texas, perhaps its a
start. Even mexico could be a good place because prosperity there helps the US
as well.

~~~
kennywinker
Not macbooks, mac pros - a much smaller market by unit size, with a much
greater markup, so much easier to move to the US than most of their other
products.

~~~
baddox
And they were already manufacturing the previous generation of Mac Pro there
since its introduction at the end of 2013. Presumably they will continue to
use Flextronics for their American manufacturing of the new Mac Pro. Also, as
far as I can tell, this American manufacturing and assembly relies on
automation to an extreme extent.

------
JohnJamesRambo
Maybe this is a stupid/naive question but why doesn’t Samsung make their
phones in Korea?

~~~
coldtea
Why doesn't Apple make their phones in the USA?

~~~
Simulacra
Labor costs, unions, and ..well..it's just not profitable for them. Apple is
in business to make money, by any means necessary. Helping the American
economy and labor force is not a priority.

------
anonygler
In addition to tariffs, they were effectively training their competitors in
China. Manufacturing in China just accelerates the rate of IP theft.

~~~
throwaway4589
Isn't that how Samsung grew during the 90s?

Japanese companies outsourced to them, and basically trained their
competitors.

Manufacturing in Korea during the 90s just accelerated the rate of IP theft.

It was like that in Japan during the 80s too.

I wonder which country will be after China.

~~~
anonygler
This reeks of whataboutism. IP theft is problematic and nobody has ever
engaged in it to the extent that China has. The Chinese intelligence apparatus
is actively engaged in IP theft as well.

~~~
tedivm
The entire US Industrial Revolution was kicked off by Francis Cabot Lowell
stealing the designs of British power looms. Alexander Hamilton, as treasury
secretary, adopted an actual policy of stealing technology and sent spies to
Britain as well.

This is how it works. Countries without technology steal it from those that
do. It's basically a market force- if you don't make it available at something
approaching a reasonable cost then it will be duplicated through research or
just directly stolen.

~~~
beerandt
Context:

The two countries were still enemies at the time and on the verge of war. If I
recall my history correctly, the trade routes collapsed when Britain stopped
selling America textiles, stopped buying American cotton and then tried to
blockade the entire country.

Yes stealing the loom filled a void in the American market, but in this case
Britain isn't exactly blameless.

It wasn't really the same market forces that we see today, unless I'm missing
something. China's not stealing IP to fill any market void.

~~~
sharpneli
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enercon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enercon)

See Patent Dispute.

I’m not saying US does this as much as China. It would be hard as US is the
tech leader in many fields.

But whenever US is not a tech leader they happily engage in government
sanctioned industrial espionage (Not Officially Officially sanctioned but wink
and nod whoopsie kind of). Thus the complaints about what China is doing ring
hollow.

------
danso
Reading this site on iPad and chrome activates an ad/dialog that sends me to
luckyguys-dot-top, which locks my iPad in a never-ending series of “Congrats
lucky iPad user!” dialog boxes.

~~~
dang
Ok, we switched to Reuters from [https://www.anandtech.com/show/14930/samsung-
stops-productio...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/14930/samsung-stops-
production-of-phones-in-china).

~~~
wil421
Dang, this is the second time today an Anandtech article has been causing ad
issues. I commented earlier about it happening to me but on a different
article.

~~~
ars
That happened to me as well. I was worried I had a virus or something. Glad to
know it's not me.

------
AFascistWorld
China can do without Samsung phones, the market is a political stake against
Samsung and Korea, but their OLED and RAM are needed there, at least for now.

~~~
philliphaydon
It doesn’t matter if China doesn’t need the phones. The phones were made there
for other markets...

------
guramarx11
Not even President Trump can make Apple do that

~~~
sjg007
Apple should do it because it’s morally right.

~~~
umanwizard
Why?

~~~
post_below
I'll try it without citations :)

Because China is an authoritarian regime that imprisons, and sometimes kills,
people for their opinions.

Because China systematically destroyed one of the oldest and most peaceful
cultures the world has ever seen in Tibet.

Because China put 100's of 1000's of Muslims in concentration camps. A program
which is still happening by all (non Chinese government) accounts.

And so on.

Not that Apple makes decisions based on moral considerations.

~~~
yesplorer
Beyond your last point on concentration camp, the US isn't a shining example
of "imprisons, and sometimes kills," and "systematically destroyed peaceful
cultures" either.

And the bail system where poor people can be held for not having money to post
bail is akin to decentralized concentration camps around the country. That you
can say is a stretch, but you get the point.

~~~
spats1990
"Only the US is allowed to mistreat Muslims and only when the Muslims are
foreigners" is a thermonuclear take of mine that I mostly keep to myself,
because it doesn't really help anybody and just makes people mad, and because
(most importantly imo) _two things can be bad at the same time_.

~~~
jowday
The big difference between the situation in Xinjiang and the US's treatment of
Muslims and illegal immigrants, IMO, is China's censorship of any opposition
to the government's actions. Prominent politicians and members of the media
openly criticize and report on the US's unethical actions - any such speech in
China is strictly controlled and punished.

~~~
spats1990
>The big difference between the situation in Xinjiang and the US's treatment
of Muslims and illegal immigrants, IMO, is China's censorship of any
opposition to the government's actions.

Sure. And the Chinese govt's surveillance apparatus is that much scarier for
operating in such (relatively) plain sight. We are getting into actual
specifics now, which is not the purpose of the thermonuclear take I posted
above. As I said, two things can be bad at the same time. It seems I'm better-
informed than the average person about the various Badnesses of the Chinese
government, but that probably says more about the people I hang out with than
anything else. That said, the sudden uptick in the last few months of China-
as-boogeyman in media and the conversation of Westerners has me watching with
a kind of sick fascination.

I save the thermonuclear take for when someone appears essentially misinformed
and is just repeating whatever Bloomberg article they read last. Spratly
Islands? Meh, it's called the South China Sea for a reason.

Sometimes you just want to hit the big red launch button and point out that in
fact, the Chinese and US governments can probably find some common ground.
Where? Well, in their prolific torturing, maiming, and murdering of innocent
Muslims over the last decade or two... ^^;

------
GrowthTrapper
We need to distant cellar business from China, expect their Government to spy
and others to steal.

------
mytailorisrich
Samsung has lost the Chinese market. It's all Apple, Huawei, and the other
Chinese brands.

This what this piece of news highlights, really.

