
How many people does it take to make 9 million Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphones? - shimon_e
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/129561-how-many-people-does-it-take-to-make-9-million-samsung-galaxy-s3-smartphones
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nhebb
> _"South Korea actually has a rather high income per capita — $24,000 — and
> the average monthly salary for a factory worker is $2000 per month."_

South Korea is an economic miracle. Back in 1985 I ran out of money half-way
through college and enlisted in the US Army for the college fund (plus they
repaid my existing student loans, which was a nice deal). I got stationed in
S. Korea and became friends with a number of KATUSA soldiers. KATUSA stood for
Korean Augmentation to the US Army, and was mostly college students fulfilling
their service requirement.

Quite a few of my KATUSA friends were engineering students like myself. They
told me that the average starting salary for an engineer was $400 / month. So
when I see that 25 years later, the average factory worker is making 5 times
that amount, it's truly stunning.

As a side note, when I was there, most of the cars on the road were new. It
wasn't because everyone could afford to ditch their old cars and buy new ones.
It was because prior to that period, not many people could to afford to buy
any car, so there simply weren't many old ones.

And their products were crap. Buy a TV, VCR, or other electronic device, and
they often failed out of the box. Pop open the hood of a Korean car and you
half expected to see a squirrel on a tread mill. But they keep plugging away,
improving quality, and growing their markets. Today, I buy Korean products
with confidence.

People talks about the rise of China, but to me, with factory salaries at
$2000/month, South Korea is the more impressive success story in the
developing world.

~~~
Symmetry
Japan, Korea, and China are really just three countries at different places on
the same road. There was a time in the 20th century when the story of Japan
was young people moving from the countryside to work in sweatshops taking in
raw Chinese silk and turning it into spools. But the workers were paid more
than they'd get on the farm, and the capitalists accumulated capital, and the
supply of surplus labor was absorbed, and by WWII Japan was in more or less
the relative position that Korea is now.

And China seems to be in more or less the same position that Korea was under
Park[1]. Of course, China has this huge hinterland that wasn't there in South
Korea, and there's nothing saying that China's political evolution will look
like South Korea's (hopefully it won't look like Japan's). But its engaging in
almost exactly the same sort of export led growth under an authoritarian
government.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Republic_of_South_Korea>

~~~
ced
_hopefully it won't look like Japan's_

I'm curious: what's wrong with Japanese politics?

~~~
Symmetry
These days? Nothing much. When they had half-finished industrializing? They
were a totalitarian state that invaded its neighbors and launched a surprise
attach on the US to keep us from intervening. Lets call that the worst case
scenario.

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zitterbewegung
Is the reason that Samsung makes their smartphones in Korea is probably due to
the fact that their supply chain already exists in Korea. Since they
manufacture all of their products in Korea it stands to reason that moving
somewhere else has a much deeper cost than just labor.

~~~
jkn
Samsung doesn't have to move plants to China to benefit from the lower wages,
they can simply contract Foxconn to assemble the devices. And they do,
according to this NYT article:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-
apples-i...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-
and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all)

The ExtremeTech article makes a lot of calculations based on the assumption
that Samsung assembles the Galaxy S3 itself, but they don't provide any
evidence of that.

~~~
mrsebastian
The Reuters article cites a source (a Korean newspaper) saying that the S3s
are being made at Samsung's South Korea smartphone factory (which is in Gumi,
I think).

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ck2
If only America was building up neighbors like Mexico with all this payout for
labor, which might have the side effect of reducing crime and immigration.

We'd also be able to more easily supervise working conditions, which may
explain why Mexico is not used for this kind of labor.

~~~
nhebb
Harvard Business Review did a study back in the mid-90's comparing the cost to
manufacture in a range of countries (outside the US). Mexico came in at the
top ranking for lowest total cost of operations, much of it due to reduced
shipping, reduced lead times, and tax benefits due to NAFTA. A lot of the
problems with Mexico, though, are due to infrastructure and workforce.

When I worked for a big electronics multinational, we had a plant in one of
the Mexican maquiladoras. Management wanted to expand operations there, but
the problem at the time was that the power grid and water supply in the area
weren't sufficient.

The factory I visited was nice, the working conditions were safe and clean,
employees had a straight 40-hour work week, and the atmosphere was friendly
and relaxed. But according to the plant manager, there was really high
turnover. This wasn't a sweat shop, the pay was good, and they weren't any
chemicals or other hazardous materials - conditions you often read about
regarding the high turnover in maquiladoras. Whatever the reason, it's really
hard to run an operation when you lose the majority of your trained workers
every year.

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Zakharov
The article assumes that both companies produce 130 tablets per worker per
month. Is this valid? I would assume that Samsung would be more efficient, if
only because their higher labor costs give them a greater incentive.

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markyc
TL;DR: 75,000

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redwood
Seriously awesome mobilization

