Why Is the iPhone Still Assembled in China?

Willy Shih says the iPhone is still assembled in China because the phone needs a huge manual workforce, and China is where that many people can be put on a line. The chips are a separate problem. The iPhone uses the most advanced chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and most of those chips are still made in Taiwan. A fab in Arizona exists, and its capacity is small next to Taiwan. The tools that make the chips come from ASML in the Netherlands and from companies such as Lam Research and Applied Materials in the United States.

The phone still cannot be put together entirely by a robot, so someone has to do the assembly by hand. He describes a walled production site, the kind organized after the communist revolution, with housing, warehouses, and a way to feed the workers. The practical question is how to gather 100,000 or 200,000 people for the scale Apple needs. India is trying, with some success, and it has been hard.

That mix is why the iPhone stays a global product. The most advanced chips and the largest assembly workforce are not in the same country.