Fortune | FORTUNE 前天 17:11
Trump’s $499 ‘built in the U.S.’ smartphone will likely be made in China, analysts say, making it subject to his own tariff policy
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特朗普集团宣布推出“美国制造”的金色“T1”智能手机,引发了行业分析师和供应链专家的质疑。尽管该公司声称手机在美国制造,但专家认为,由于美国缺乏大规模生产能力,这款手机很可能最初在中国生产。文章深入探讨了美国智能手机制造的局限性,包括供应链薄弱、熟练员工短缺以及利润率较低等问题。同时,文章还分析了特朗普政府的关税政策对手机生产的影响,以及特朗普集团此举可能传递的政治信号。

📱 尽管特朗普集团宣称其新款“T1”智能手机“在美国制造”,但分析师普遍认为,该设备很可能最初由中国的原始设计制造商(ODM)生产。美国目前缺乏大规模生产智能手机的能力,即使有,也需要依赖从海外进口的零部件。

🏭 美国在智能手机制造方面面临诸多挑战。自2G时代以来,美国已经十多年没有大规模生产手机。专家指出,美国在智能手机供应链、熟练员工以及利润率方面都存在劣势,这使得在美国本土生产手机的成本极高,几乎不可能在短期内实现。

💰 特朗普政府实施的关税政策对特朗普集团的手机业务构成了潜在风险。由于手机零部件主要来自中国,这使得特朗普集团的手机容易受到特朗普政府关税的影响。分析师指出,无论是屏幕、摄像头技术还是芯片组,几乎所有这些零部件都来自亚洲的制造中心。

🗣️ 特朗普集团强调手机“在美国制造”,可能旨在向其他大型科技公司传递信号。分析师认为,这可能为特朗普政府提供了筹码,可以以此向苹果和三星等公司施压,要求它们将生产转移到美国。

Analysts and supply chain experts are not sold on the Trump Organization touting its new smartphone as being “built in the United States,” saying it’s far more likely the $499 device will actually be produced in China.

The Trump Organization, the Trump family’s real estate, hospitality, and entertainment conglomerate, announced on Monday it would license its name to a wireless service called Trump Mobile and its gold-colored “T1” smartphone slated for an August release. The device will use a wireless provider dubbed Liberty Wireless and will operate on the Google Android operating system.

The Trump Organization’s announcement touted the phones as “proudly designed and built in the United States,” but analysts said it’s more likely the conglomerate is outsourcing manufacturing capabilities to an original device manufacturer (ODM) overseas, as least in the short term, as the U.S. does not have the manufacturing capabilities to build the phone.

“Despite being advertised as an American-made phone, it is likely that this device will be initially produced by a Chinese ODM,” Blake Przesmicki, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, said in a note published Monday.

Even if the U.S. did have smartphone production capabilities, he said, the company would have to rely on components imported from overseas.

The Trump Organization did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Trump Organization executive vice president Eric Trump, for his part, admitted Trump Mobile would not initially be an entirely domestic endeavor.

“Eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America,” Trump said on The Benny Show podcast on Monday, suggesting the device is being produced or assembled overseas before its August launch.

Manufacturing limitations

President Donald Trump has tried to jumpstart domestic manufacturing by imposing sweeping tariffs, but experts have long warned of the U.S.’s production limitations. Apple, for example, set up its supply chain in China in the 1990s, and moving it would require extensive sourcing substitutions and increased labor costs that would drive the cost of a U.S.-made iPhone to more than $3,000, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives previously said.

These barriers to expanding U.S. production are nearly universal in the industry, according to Przesmicki.

“Generally, no phones have been manufactured in the U.S. since the 2G era in over a decade,” Przesmicki told Fortune. “We have weaker supply chains, fewer capable employees in the smartphone sector, lower margins.”

Przesmicki suggested if any manufacturing of Trump-branded phones were to take place on American soil, it would be on a small scale, about 1,000 phones or fewer. Leo Gebbie, principal analyst at CCS Insight, told Fortune there’s “no serious chance” the Trump Organization has arranged for U.S. production of the T1 phones, especially before the August launch.

“The idea that this could be replicated in the U.S. in any sort of short- to medium-term timescale is fanciful,” Gebbie said. “It is an absolute pipe dream.” 

Instead, according to Gebbie, the T1 phones will likely have their final assembly stage in the U.S., which would allow the company to avoid steep investments in domestic manufacturing by simply importing all components. This strategy, he said, could be closer to what the Trump Organization intended when it hailed phones “built” in the U.S.

Trump not immune to his own tariffs

The importing of phone components, the majority of which are made in China, would provide another supply chain hiccup for the Trump Organization by making it susceptible to tariffs Trump imposed for the express purpose of discouraging trade with China.

“This absolutely does raise the specter of the Trump Organization mobile falling foul of the tariffs that have been instigated by the Trump administration,” Gebbie said.

“Ultimately, whether we’re talking about screens, whether we’re talking about camera technologies, whether we’re talking about chipsets and processors and smartphones, almost all of this comes from the same manufacturing hubs in Asia,” he added.

The president last month threatened a 25% tariff on smartphones not produced in the U.S. and lambasted Apple for producing its iPhone in India—where it makes about 20% of its total output. Trump warned he would impose a 25% levy on Apple products if the company does not move manufacturing to the U.S. 

Apple announced in February it would invest $500 billion in expanding U.S. plants over the next four years.

Gebbie suggested the Trump Organization’s emphasis on building its phone in the U.S—despite domestic manufacturing being unlikely—is to send a message to big companies that U.S. smartphone assembly is possible.

“Maybe it provides leverage for the Trump administration to go out to device-makers like Apple and Samsung and say, ‘Hey, we are marking smartphones in the U.S. Why aren’t you?’” Gebbie said.

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特朗普手机 供应链 美国制造 关税
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