Why the tech giants have pulled their production lines back into the United States this year

The label on some technology products seems to be changed from "Made in" to "Made in USA". Into the 2013, at least three technology giants have announced that one or more of their products will be produced in the United States.

First, Motorola, which announced that it was to be made in the United States after the Googe acquisition of its flagship model Moto X, was even a slogan for advertising, trying to inspire Americans to embrace domestic products.

Apple's Mac Pro, the ultra-avant-garde graphics workstation, chooses to make it in the US, rather than continue to give way to Foxconn workers in mainland China.

Then there is the recently confirmed association, a Chinese company that has become the world's largest PC maker, and has announced plans to set up a factory in North Carolina State to assemble its ThinkPad business notebooks and ThinkCentre workstations while local companies begin to withdraw production lines.

Why these tech giants have pulled their production lines back into the U.S. this year. They have established a more mature generation, regulation and logistics system in China, why should they spend more money to build factories in the United States?

If you look again, you will find that the three companies announced the "retreat" products, are the main products, but also the more high-end computing equipment. Moto X, MAC Pro all require very meticulous production and assembly processes, while ThinkPad is known for its excellent workmanship (this is, of course, high-end models). In addition, there is a view that the confidentiality of these high-end products is different from the usual products, the need for higher confidentiality.

As Motorola executives have explained: The production line is set up domestically (TEXAS) to facilitate communication and communication between engineers and manufacturing workshops, thus creating products that are more in line with customer needs. It is noteworthy that Moto X, in addition to its flagship local manufacturing, also supports personalized customization as Dell did in the past.

I think the above two reasons do not seem to answer the question. These products must be global products, not limited to a particular market, so it is unfair to tilt the manufacturing and buying advantages to the American consumers, which is certainly not a determinant of the production line's withdrawal; Devices such as the iphone, which involve thousands of important patents, still choose to process overseas because the domestic foundry does not have the capacity and the yield rate (see Steve Jobs ' history when the first iphone was released).

The so-called confidentiality of these products, only in the research and development phase of value, which is why there are spy photos, and to the release or even open the purchase, confidentiality is not to say, then rely on patent protection, not trade secret protection. Because any consumer can take the new Mac Pro apart and look at it.

Interestingly, Motorola chose to invest in Texas and its partners were flextronics, while Apple and Lenovo were building factories in Texas and North Carolina, and their partners were Foxconn. Foxconn is now aggressively expanding its capacity in the United States, and Apple's Home-grown Mac will not be made clear by Foxconn, but it looks like Foxconn should be the first choice.

In short, the three companies do not have their own investment in the plant, but chose to work with the factory to cooperate with the way. That is to say, to transfer the original partnership in China to the United States. I think this is the first important reason: Labor costs.

As we all know, the exchange rate of the dollar for RMB is shrinking, which leads to a "rise" in domestic labor prices. As a result, the advantages of overseas workers in labour costs are no longer apparent.

A second important reason is the so-called "manufacturing recovery" in the United States. In the 1960 's, about 29% of jobs in the United States came from manufacturing, and in 2011 the proportion dropped to 9%. Faced with a declining economy and stubbornly high unemployment, the Obama administration urgently needs to take steps to curb the deterioration of the situation, and the revival of the manufacturing sector will certainly solve the problem to a large extent.

Obama once asked Mr. Jobs: how much will it cost to make an iphone in America? The answer, of course, is that America has less capacity than China. It's a fact, but it's also to be noted that the protagonist in this story is the iphone, a product that requires a global 100,000-piece delivery.

While Moto X is customized, MAC Pro is not "arcade", and high-end ThinkPad and thinkcentre user groups are much narrower than Lenovo's other consumer notebooks. So the Obama administration is confident that the products will be pulled back into the US.

The third reason, and I think it is for public relations strategic reasons, that is, to create high-quality image engineering. It seems to be a quality guarantee for American companies to produce products made in the United States, both for domestic consumers and for consumers in overseas markets such as China.

This is not my assumption, the technology giant executives are thinking, but also to the consumer propaganda. This is like Chinese consumers are always flocking to imported BMW, and the domestic version of the scoff.

But is this third reason really a long-term solution? Obviously not. Technology giants also seem to be learning from BMW, whose main idea is that no matter where the product is made, it is made by BMW. For the more "cheap" technology consumer goods, we should also learn from the concept of global production: No matter where assembled, are made of Apple.