

What is the cost to make Smartphone in USA? $4 - StephenFalken
http://olimex.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/what-is-the-cost-to-make-smartphone-in-usa-4/

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Osiris
$4? I assume that is the cost of assembling the device in the USA. The benefit
of Chinese manufacturing (from what I've read) is that the various factories
that make all your parts are right next to each other, so if there's an issue
with an order, you can order more parts and literally walk them down the
street.

To become really competitive, the USA will need to bring quite a bit of
manufacturing back to be able to have that kind of synergy.

However, I would say that I would trust the quality of components here more
than from China in terms of better processes and QA.

Someone correct me if I've gotten something wrong here. I don't have any
directly experience with any of this.

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H4wk_cz
Blogspam and misleading title. $4 is the difference. Original article
[http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/28/technology/mobile/moto-x-
uni...](http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/28/technology/mobile/moto-x-united-
states/index.html)

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straight_talk_2
>> misleading title

Not really - the article claims it costs $4 per device to move manufacturing
to US, so that is the cost of a "Made in USA" label.

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afhof
"The workers work and live in the factory dormitories – allowing flexible time
and really quick manufacturing, something which would never happen in US or
the Western Europe."

Its not like thats ever happened in the US.

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straight_talk_2
It's still happening, in places like Alaska.

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infocollector
So assembly is $4. The cost of the parts is $100 I assume? Most of which is
manufactured outside the USA?

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straight_talk_2
I haven't read the linked article, but this doesn't sound right. Assembly is
mostly a manual process, workers salary must be the biggest cost. Salaries in
US are way more that 50% higher than in China.

