Are any iPhones made in the USA?

No. All iPhones are currently made in China. If they were made in the US they would cost roughly twice as much, because US labor rates are about 10 times what Chinese assemblers are paid.

Not just iPhones; there are no cell phones of any kind made in the US, for the same reasons. Even Samsung (Korean) phones are made in China.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

No. All iPhones are currently made in China. If they were made in the US they would cost roughly twice as much, because US labor rates are about 10 times what Chinese assemblers are paid.

Not just iPhones; there are no cell phones of any kind made in the US, for the same reasons. Even Samsung (Korean) phones are made in China.

Its been a while since any mobile phones were made in the US. The last Nokia phone I bought was in 2003 and it said on the sticker that it was assembled in the United States.

However, it’s more accurate to say that iPhones have final assembly in China. The bulk of the value added is not from Chinese parts or labor.

deggie wrote:

Your last sentence doesn't make much sense, in many cases there would be no phone at all without the assembly in China and many of the key parts are made in other factories in China.

Have you seen the estimated cost breakdown on the materials in an iPhone? At the very least the chips on any iPhone are the most expensive parts, which are not from China. The most expensive single parts are the displays that are primarily made in Korea or Japan.

The parts of an iPhone are made by companies scattered all over the globe - glass, WiFi chips, power management chips, etc from the USA, batteries from China and Japan, other parts from Germany, Switzerland, Taiwan, and other countries. Even for the companies based in one country (e.g. Displays made in Japan) those companies may have plants in many counties. Final assembly is done in China or Taiwan depending on assembly company capacity and demand (e.g. the iPhone 4 was assembled in both countries during its production life span).

And btw, this is pretty much the same for all consumer electronics, from Macs, Dell and other laptops and desktops, to Kindles, Nook eReaders, Samsung tablets and phones, etc...

Thats why the tag line says “designed in CA, assembled in China” as the parts are specified by Apple, but the sources are highly varied.

So while some parts are actually manufactured in the USA, the actual iPhone is put together in China or Taiwan, but uses parts from all over the place. And in the modern electronics world, it changes, for source parts and final assembly all the time, depending on companies capacities, and pricing to Apple - Apple has changed parts suppliers multiple times over the lifetime of the iPhone, as well as adding or removing additional assembler companies as needed to meet demand.

Michael Black wrote:

The parts of an iPhone are made by companies scattered all over the globe - glass, WiFi chips, power management chips, etc from the USA, batteries from China and Japan, other parts from Germany, Switzerland, Taiwan, and other countries. Even for the companies based in one country (e.g. Displays made in Japan) those companies may have plants in many counties. Final assembly is done in China or Taiwan depending on assembly company capacity and demand (e.g. the iPhone 4 was assembled in both countries during its production life span).

Even the chips are kind of complicated. The silicon might be made in a fab in the US, Japan, Singapore, Korea, or Taiwan, but then the "bare die" are sent to China, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, etc. for packaging and testing. If you look on the packaging it might say "Singapore" but that only refers to where the silicon went into the package.

There isn't really any special about China when it comes to assembling an iPhone. Some parts come from there and it's where Apple's Taiwanese contract manufacturers choose to set up their factories. But I stand by my comment that the bulk of the value added is not from China.

I wasn’t disputing anything you said. Just responding to the OP to point out the nature of consumer electronics is that they are really a global industry, in terms of actual sourcing of parts.

And really, that’s not a new or novel thing either. Companies like ASUS and Acer were assembling products for Dell, IBM, HP and others long before anyone knew of them for their own name branded hardware. Mass final assembly of consumer electronics has been an industry unto itself since the 1990s and companies like Foxconn can put together and churn out iPhone and iPads probably faster than the parts manufacturers can supply them. That’s their specialty and their whole business model - putting all the pieces together.

Sorry, I was just expanding on your comments. End products tend to have just one labeled origin and where parts are “made” is far more complex than that.

Foxconn and Pegatron are from Taiwan. There’s nothing particularly special about setting up factories in China other that a lot of workers and speaking the same language means one less thing they need to worry about. They’ve been able to set up shop in other countries with similar results. There aren’t too many companies that can take a design to production as quickly, while maintaining secrecy. I marvel at how Apple can announce a product and have it in stores the same day without any leaks.

deggie wrote:

I also agree with the description but I disagree with the phrase "the value added is not from China". The individual parts mean nothing until they are assemble into a working device.

Where is the money going? That’s the value added. When someone buys an iPhone, only a small fraction of the wholesale price is going towards profit/materials/labor in China.

It’s not an all or nothing situation in my mind. The individual parts are crucial to the function of the device. But so is the final assembly. The reality is that companies like Foxconn have taken the concept of final assembly, with high QC control of that output, to a state of the art that if replicated in any western nation would drastically increase the cost of the devices to consumers.

It wasn’t that western nation company’s didn’t get the idea of automation and such, but what they didn’t get was the idea of turning product assembly itself into a commodity. When companies like Apple, Dell, IBM, Gateway, Twinhead USA, were all designing, making and assembling their own products, companies like Foxconn were exploring the idea of not making anything under their own brand name, but making/assembling final products for others, on a scale that utterly dwarfs any individual company’s capacity to assembly their own final products. Their whole business model is they they can assembly final products simultaneously for many companies for far less than any one of those companies can assemble their own products in-house. It is the whole idea of providing the service of product assembly as a commodity that was novel for the companies we see doing it in Taiwan, S.Korea, China and other Asian nations.

That’s what I think gets lost in much of the economic news. Yes, labor was and remains cheaper in Asia than in the USA, Canada and Europe. But that alone does not explain the shift in manufacturing industries. It was also the vision of Asian businessmen that massive output assembly of products itself was a commodity that could be marketed and profitable.

Yes, I've read all of those for years, you haven't discovered anything new. What Apple, or others, don't ever publish is what Apple is paying for final assembly and testing, probably due to the complexity of the contracts.

But how about we quit hijacking and trying to show how smart we all are and go back to the OPs original question and use Apple's terminology, i.e., designed in California and ASSEMBLED in China. I don't know of any smart phones that are currently assembled in the USA. The last one I am aware of is the Motorola model that you could semi-customize.

So the answer to his question is no.

Again, trying to show how smart you are and not directly answering the question. Plus I wouldn't bet on the fact that prototypes are assemble in California. But since the OP cannot purchase any of the prototypes the answer is still no.

deggie wrote:

Again, trying to show how smart you are and not directly answering the question. Plus I wouldn't bet on the fact that prototypes are assemble in California. But since the OP cannot purchase any of the prototypes the answer is still no.

Nobody is answering the question now, because the answer is pretty simple. But it's a good way to start an interesting conversation. But as far as where the prototypes are assembled, your guess is as good as mine.

Your last sentence doesn't make much sense, in many cases there would be no phone at all without the assembly in China and many of the key parts are made in other factories in China.

I also agree with the description but I disagree with the phrase "the value added is not from China". The individual parts mean nothing until they are assemble into a working device.

How much is Apple paying for the assembly or the iPhone?