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    How the US lost the smartphone manufacturing race: in 1990, the vast majority of the world's mobile phones were manufactured in the US. Today, the bulk of the world's smartphones are manufactured in China, with the city of Hong Kong alone producing several times more smartphones than the entire US.
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    How the US lost the smartphone manufacturing race: in 1990, the vast majority of the world’s mobile phones were manufactured in the US. Today, the bulk of the world’s smartphones are manufactured in China, with the city of Hong Kong alone producing several times more smartphones than the entire US.


    How the US lost the smartphone manufacturing race: in 1990, the vast majority of the world’s mobile phones were manufactured in the US. Today, the bulk of the world’s smartphones are manufactured in China, with the city of Hong Kong alone producing several times more smartphones than the entire US.

    Posted by StarlightDown

    View 17 Comments

    17 Comments

    1. secretBuffetHero on

      I believe we did not “lose it”, we gave it away. The economy was geared more towards knowledge work and away from manufacturing.

    3. -p-e-w- on

      It’s silly to frame this as “losing a race”. The US has multiple companies that are worth more than most countries’ GDP, without having to manufacture anything. Nvidia, Google, and Microsoft alone dwarf entire sectors of China’s economy.

      You might as well claim that “France lost the agricultural race” because it now imports many food products from lower-income countries, or that “China is losing the clothes manufacturing race” because the textile industry is increasingly moving to Bangladesh and Vietnam.

    4. Synth_Ham on

      Remember how Donald Trump said that he was going to sell a phone that was made in the United States? Pepperidge farm remembers.

    5. Haunting-Detail2025 on

      The US “lost” because it invested heavily in the software and operating systems behind smartphones and focused on that rather than hardware manufacturing.

      Say what you will about the US, but having a shortage of blue chip companies and being at the cutting edge of technology is not exactly an area where it is struggling. Most countries would much rather have Nvidia, Microsoft, Cloudflare, Alphabet, etc. than a Motorola or LG factory if they had to pick.

    6. BowlEducational6722 on

      We gave most of our commercial manufacturing aware because we valued shareholder profits and c-suite bonuses more than economic security as a whole.

      China didn’t steal our jobs; we sold them off for pennies on the dollar.

    7. bespoketoosoon on

      Something something China has all the heavy metals which are dangerous to work with but they don’t have an OSHA so they just go ahead and work with them and the workers sorta just often die?

      Am I getting the short version right? 

    8. movingtobay2019 on

      OP – I think you discovered labor arbitrage. I don’t think that’s really “losing”.

    11. ale_93113 on

      China lost the textile manufacturing to Bangladesh? No it’s not losing, it’s moving up the value chain

    12. breakthro444 on

      I mean, building a $200 iPhone out of $190 in parts and raw materials only to have the “loser” turn it onto a $1200 phone by uploading some software and sell it back to you doesn’t seem like the win it is.

      Also, the US is still the world’s 2nd largest manufacturer, and manufactures more than the entirety of the EU.

    13. yojifer680 on

      China is the world’s sweatshop, because they have lots of poor people willing to work for low wages. I would exactly call that “winning the race”

    14. BrowserOfWares on

      In China they’re able to work a 996, pump out phones for Christmas then layoff the workers due to minimal protections. The same would not be possible in the US.

    15. nim_opet on

      U.S. phone manufactures moved the production to save on labour costs. That’s how. US capital chose to maximize returns by lowering the COGS.

    17. CharakaSamhit on

      The IS DIDN’T “lose” traitor US companies moved production to CHYYYNA for cheap SLAVE LABOR
      GET
      A
      CLUE