Can Dell and HP Keep Pace With An Asia-Centric PC World? 218
MojoKid writes "If you've paid any attention to the PC industry in the past few years, you're aware that things aren't as rosy as they used to be. After decades of annual growth, major manufacturers like HP and Dell have both either floated the idea of exiting the consumer space (HP) or gone private (Dell). Contrast that with steady growth at companies like Asus and Lenovo, and some analysts think the entire PC industry could move to Asia in the next few years. The ironic part of the observation is that in many ways, this has already happened. Asia-Pacific manufacturers are more focused on the consumer electronics market and better able to cope with low margins thanks to rapid adoption and huge potential customer bases. Apple has proven that high margin hardware can be extremely profitable, but none of the PC OEMs have been willing to risk the R&D costs or carry new products for a significant period of time while they adapt designs and improve market share."
Re:I bought a PC yesterday (Score:4, Informative)
The whole market? (Score:4, Informative)
Not really. The case/layout is some of the least of the technical parts of a computer. All the components inside are the higher tech bits and you find they come from all over. The big daddy, the CPU, is usually from the US. Most of Intel's fabs are in the US, and their design centres are in the US and Israel. Same deal with the motherboard chipset, though their Ireland fab does quite a few of those. Assembly largely depends on where you are, they have packaging facilities in the US, Costa Rica, Vietnam, Malaysia, and China.
The graphics card, if there's a separate one, was fabbed in Taiwan by TSMC, at least for now (both AMD and nVidia re displeased with them) but designed in either the US or Canada since that's where nVidia and AMD respectively have their design centers. All development is done there.
For memory it really runs the gamut. Depending on the company the chips can get fabbed in the US, EU, or Asia and final assembly of the sticks is often done elsewhere. Some places, like Micron, like their own modules, others buy from other companies (Kingston favours Hyynix these days).
Storage it varies. HDDs are all Asia all the time. Final assembly is pretty much Malaysia or China. Components come from various places, motors notably from just one firm in Thailand. For SSDs it again depends on the company. Samsung is all internal and does their own flash, CPU (though it is based on an ARM core) and construction. They do final assembly in Korea, the flash itself is sometimes fabbed in Korea though a lot of it is fabbed in Texas (Samsung has a big plant there). Intel buys their controllers from Sandforce, a US company, but they are fabless so Intel fabs the ones they use. Their flash they make themselves mostly in their Utah but also Singapore (the facilities are co-owned Intel and Micron).
For discrete components, like caps and so on, then Japan is usually the big supplier. It varies some, China is used as well, but Japan is still real, real big in the discrete components game.
Power supplies? That's all China all the time. There are only a couple companies that make them, and they do the design work too. They put out a PSU design, companies then alter the specs to their liking (upgrading components for better reliability or whatnot) and then they are built to order.
LCDs are mostly Korea in terms of panels, though China is in that market too, and nearly all China for final assembly.
Computers are really quite an international production. They use parts form all over, and designs from all over. Remember that the place that produces a part isn't necessarily the place that designed it. This is not only true for fabless companies like nVidia, but even for companies like Intel. They don't do design, fab, packaging, and all that in one facility, they are all over the place.
To say the market belongs to Asia is rather silly. It belongs to the world.
Oh and with regards to Dell? Have a look at the systems you get in the US. Mexico and Brazil are the usual sources for final assembly, not Asia.