# Mobiles to cost more



## theserpent (Feb 28, 2013)

> Mobile phones are set to become costlier with Finance Minister P Chidambaram raising excise duty to 6% on handsets priced above Rs 2,000 in Budget 2013-14.
> 
> "About 70% of imported mobile phones and about 60 percent of domestically manufactured mobile phones are priced at Rs 2,000 or below," the Finance Minister said in his Budgetary speech.
> 
> ...




Mobile phones above Rs 2,000 set to cost more | Business Standard


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## Thunder (Feb 28, 2013)

Ha Ha Ha...Smartphoes to cost more‚ but free Wi-Fi in trains...Well played Congress


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## furious_gamer (Feb 28, 2013)

I thought of importing Nexus 4, now


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## funskar (Feb 28, 2013)

Free wifi in trains n anubhuti too..


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## Vignesh B (Feb 28, 2013)

> "About 70% of imported mobile phones and about 60 percent of domestically manufactured mobile phones are priced at Rs 2,000 or below," the Finance Minister said in his Budgetary speech.


I don't know why, but this statement looks quite silly. Personally I feel the percentage is highly exaggerated. Maybe am wrong.


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## sujoyp (Feb 28, 2013)

no I think the statement may be possible...whats wrong in that...most people in India are still poor

but 6% rise means the total cost may be increased by 800-1k of most phones


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## theserpent (Feb 28, 2013)

Acutally he said the rate has been increased to 6%..not +6%


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## pratyush997 (Feb 28, 2013)

furious_gamer said:


> I thought of importing Nexus 4, now


How many devices do you want man!


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## anirbandd (Feb 28, 2013)

one way of importing gadgets/electronic stuff is through relatives abroad... 

ask them to unpack the stuff and make it look like its in use. customs dont charge for in use electronic stuff.

but if you dont have relatives abroad,


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## Sudh4r (Feb 28, 2013)

As if the Mobile Phones prices are less now . duh


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## omega44-xt (Feb 28, 2013)

Already rupee is weak aganist USD & now this.........


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## tkin (Feb 28, 2013)

Free wifi in trains? That's a bunch of bullcr@p, remember the time when they said they'll put telephone booths in trains? The money will be allocated and the lions share will change hands, only a handful trains will get a cheap chinese router which won't be able to handle even 50 devices, and connections will drop out every sec, forget the speed. Its a decision to prevent the backlash from increasing mobile prices.


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## pratyush997 (Feb 28, 2013)

tkin said:


> Free wifi in trains? That's a bunch of bullcr@p, remember the time when they said they'll put telephone booths in trains? The money will be allocated and the lions share will change hands, only a handful trains will get a cheap chinese router which won't be able to handle even 50 devices, and connections will drop out every sec, forget the speed. Its a decision to prevent the backlash from increasing mobile prices.


and when complained
Server Down hai, saarrr


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## d6bmg (Feb 28, 2013)

> "About 70% of imported mobile phones and about 60 percent of domestically manufactured mobile phones are priced at Rs 2,000 or below,"



Really? WHat's the price of the mobile in your pocket, Mr. Ministers?


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## Ronnie11 (Feb 28, 2013)

loved the way it was put in..phone priced above 2000...


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## nikufellow (Feb 28, 2013)

Bravo they spared tablets


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## Nipun (Feb 28, 2013)

I don't know how it is wrong. It is just like a luxury tax. All phones under 2k can perform all functions you want from a phone, ie messaging, calling, alarms etc. If you want to play games or watch movies on it, it is a luxury and taxes are justified. Either this or companies should manufacture phones here, generating employment. With this increase in tax, a 30k phone will cost around 31.5k. I'm quite sure if you can pay 30k, you can stretch by 1.5k.


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## tkin (Feb 28, 2013)

nikufellow said:


> Bravo they spared tablets


A tablet with GSM will probably be considered as a phone


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## pratyush997 (Feb 28, 2013)

tkin said:


> A tablet with GSM will probably be considered as a phone


A BiiiG phone i.e phablet


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## tkin (Feb 28, 2013)

Nipun said:


> I don't know how it is wrong. It is just like a luxury tax. All phones under 2k can perform all functions you want from a phone, ie messaging, calling, alarms etc. If you want to play games or watch movies on it, it is a luxury and taxes are justified. Either this or companies should manufacture phones here, generating employment. With this increase in tax, a 30k phone will cost around 31.5k. I'm quite sure if you can pay 30k, you can stretch by 1.5k.


Fine, then put luxury tax on everything, you can live by eating dal roti, so lets tax any food except the bare necessities, you can use a 4k digicam to take pictures, lets tax the others more, you can wear cheap clothes, lets tax raymonds more, you can live in a small home, lets tax the costlier homes more. See the problem?


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## nginx (Feb 28, 2013)

Nipun said:


> I don't know how it is wrong. It is just like a luxury tax. All phones under 2k can perform all functions you want from a phone, ie messaging, calling, alarms etc. If you want to play games or watch movies on it, it is a luxury and taxes are justified. Either this or companies should manufacture phones here, generating employment. With this increase in tax, a 30k phone will cost around 31.5k. I'm quite sure if you can pay 30k, you can stretch by 1.5k.



Wow look someone is trying to justify "luxury tax" as if the government isn't ripping us off enough with customs duty, VAT, service tax, sales tax, income tax, educational cess etc. etc.. Clearly we need a luxury tax as well because the common man does not deserve to own a phone with a price tag over 2k.

It has also been reported that Internet is also going to get costlier soon because we need to pay DOT for VOIP services provided free of cost by Skype. Another ingenious scheme by the government to rip us off.


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## amjath (Mar 1, 2013)

furious_gamer said:


> I thought of importing Nexus 4, now





> Update: To add more clarity on the matter and also rectify what we had mentioned earlier, government is increasing the excise duty.  *So, the imports are not likely to be impacted by this*.  We are actively tracking it and will update the story as we get more information.



Mobile phones to get costlier in India #Budget2013 (Update)


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## Anorion (Mar 1, 2013)

yeah, wondering why we don't manufacture more here, considering we are about the only country that can produce engineers in the volumes required for such operations apart from china.


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## Hrishi (Mar 1, 2013)

Waiting for next election.


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## pratyush997 (Mar 1, 2013)

^ They will screw everything till then :-X


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## pranav0091 (Mar 1, 2013)

I want to see a tax on depending on the size of the ministers' belly, because obviously that's a sign of having lived in luxury.


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## ithehappy (Mar 1, 2013)

So a 30K phone will now be 31800? Hmm!


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## Hrishi (Mar 1, 2013)

That'll be helpful only if they don't stack up those extra Taxes in to their own pocket. [ Trying to act robinhood , huh. ...?? ]


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## tkin (Mar 1, 2013)

Anorion said:


> yeah, wondering why we don't manufacture more here, considering we are about the only country that can produce engineers in the volumes required for such operations apart from china.


Rare earth minerals, china controls the supply and if you manufacture there instead of other places china sells it cheaper.



Rishi. said:


> That'll be helpful only if they don't stack up those extra Taxes in to their own pocket. [ Trying to act robinhood , huh. ...?? ]


cough...swiss bank....cough....caymans....hack thoo.


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## ithehappy (Mar 1, 2013)

tkin said:


> Rare earth minerals, china controls the supply and if you manufacture there instead of other places china sells it cheaper.


I heard that in BO2.


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## tkin (Mar 1, 2013)

ithehappy said:


> I heard that in BO2.


Its as real as the game showed it, China controls the material to make everything, every gawd damn chip out there, its worse than oil on Saudi's as China literally has 95%+ market share, and worse yet, China plans to stop export, that means, either come and make your stuff in China or GTFO: Rare earth element - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Global rare earth production section).


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## Anorion (Mar 1, 2013)

oic, this rare earth thing makes sense


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## draco21 (Mar 1, 2013)

Hmmm when does this implement?? i mean will the prices of phones go up from right now??

Hmmm when does this implement?? i mean will the prices of phones go up from right now??


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## amjath (Mar 1, 2013)

price hike will be implemented faster than price reduction  JK don't know bro


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## nikufellow (Mar 1, 2013)

tkin said:


> A tablet with GSM will probably be considered as a phone



Ah my bad thought you would take that as a joke


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## Harsh Pranami (Mar 2, 2013)

OK why am I the unluckiest guy?? I have been using my nokia 7610 for almost 5 years now. I was thinking of upgrading in 1-2 months. And now this comes.


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## SlayerAndy (Mar 2, 2013)

Do you really think the tax that is levied will be the amount by which the prices will increase? If there is an increase of 1k, the price would hike by 1.5k. We are getting ripped off. Someone talked about luxury, that means we are just turning to dictator country. The VIPs get every possible concession, and we are just turning to their slaves. We work hard, we earn, and we pay taxes on every action we do, just to fill their pockets. Just like it used to be in ancient kingdoms. 

Consider 2 of the many that came to light. Lets forget which we don't even know about.

2g Spectrum scam- Scam of Rs. 1,70,000 crore 
Indian coal allocation-Rs 1,80,000 crore
Lets add it up
3,50,000 crore

Where did that come from? Lets divide by our population,say 100 crores for now.
Rs. 3,500
Is the amount that went out of everyone, and I mean everyone's pocket. Now, money can't disappear, neither it can be lost, so where did it go? To offer luxury to our kings and queens, and we have to pay luxury taxes.


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## tkin (Mar 2, 2013)

SlayerAndy said:


> Do you really think the tax that is levied will be the amount by which the prices will increase? If there is an increase of 1k, the price would hike by 1.5k. We are getting ripped off. Someone talked about luxury, that means we are just turning to dictator country. The VIPs get every possible concession, and we are just turning to their slaves. We work hard, we earn, and we pay taxes on every action we do, just to fill their pockets. Just like it used to be in ancient kingdoms.
> 
> Consider 2 of the many that came to light. Lets forget which we don't even know about.
> 
> ...


Then do everything to throw off this government


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## nginx (Mar 2, 2013)

tkin said:


> Then do everything to throw off this government



All parties and politicians are corrupt. Whoever comes will continue where the previous party has left off.


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## Flash (Mar 2, 2013)

Harsh Pranami said:


> OK why am I the unluckiest guy?? I have been using my nokia 7610 for almost 5 years now. I was thinking of upgrading in 1-2 months. And now this comes.


Same to me with nokia 7500 for 4.5 yrs/


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## NVIDIAGeek (Mar 2, 2013)

How much does a 6% raise converts to a price? Like how much would a then-30k phone cost now?


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## tkin (Mar 2, 2013)

NVIDIAGeek said:


> How much does a 6% raise converts to a price? Like how much would a then-30k phone cost now?


Simple maths?


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## Nipun (Mar 2, 2013)

NVIDIAGeek said:


> How much does a 6% raise converts to a price? Like how much would a then-30k phone cost now?



31800


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## Hrishi (Mar 2, 2013)

Nipun said:


> 31800



It'll be 31500 to be precise.
The increase in excise duty will be 5%. SO calculate excise duty at 5%of 30,000rs.


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## lywyre (Mar 3, 2013)

The govt. is having a hard time blocking online speech about all current affairs from J&K to KK. I believe they don't want people to know (realize) the truth and they are doing everything to keep more people from knowing/ sharing/ communication. 

May not be true, but that is what I think. While the communication (mobile) and connectivity (internet) rates in China and other parts of the world is rapidly increasing, it is slowing in India. In fact a record number of mobiles went offline last year in India. Despite this, the govt. of India is hell bent on increasing broadband rates, raising spectrum rates, raising taxes on mobile subscription and now raising taxes on mobiles that are capable of data service. Add to this additional cost on petrol, domestic gas, overall general inflation, these are only going to have a negative impact on India's growth. I can't see an iota of sincerity in the govt's effort to take India forward.


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## Nipun (Mar 3, 2013)

Rishi. said:


> It'll be 31500 to be precise.
> The increase in excise duty will be 5%. SO calculate excise duty at 5%of 30,000rs.



Post said 6%.


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## lywyre (Mar 3, 2013)

Nipun said:


> Post said 6%.



Raised by 5% from 1% to 6%.


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## jaykant (Mar 5, 2013)

In the same Budget proposals for 2013-14, minister of finance P Chidambaram same excise duty on Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) are going to be raised to thirty per cent from twenty seven per cent.

"SUVs occupy bigger road and automobile parking space and have to be compelled to bear the next tax... However, the rise won't apply to SUVs registered as taxis," adult male Chidambaram same.

Targeting the "affluent category in Bharat that consumes foreign luxury product like high finish automobiles, motorcycles, yachts and similar vessels", he said: "I am positive they'll not mind paying somewhat a lot of."


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## Hrishi (Mar 5, 2013)

jaykant said:


> In the same Budget proposals for 2013-14, minister of finance P Chidambaram same excise duty on Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) are going to be raised to thirty per cent from twenty seven per cent.
> 
> "SUVs occupy bigger road and automobile parking space and have to be compelled to bear the next tax... However, the rise won't apply to SUVs registered as taxis," adult male Chidambaram same.
> 
> Targeting the "affluent category in Bharat that consumes foreign luxury product like high finish automobiles, motorcycles, yachts and similar vessels", he said: "I am positive they'll not mind paying somewhat a lot of."



Adult male chidamb.........haha lolz.


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## GhorMaanas (Mar 5, 2013)

lywyre said:


> The govt. is having a hard time blocking online speech about all current affairs from J&K to KK. I believe they don't want people to know (realize) the truth and they are doing everything to keep more people from knowing/ sharing/ communication.
> 
> May not be true, but that is what I think. While the communication (mobile) and connectivity (internet) rates in China and other parts of the world is rapidly increasing, it is slowing in India. In fact a record number of mobiles went offline last year in India. Despite this, the govt. of India is hell bent on increasing broadband rates, raising spectrum rates, raising taxes on mobile subscription and now raising taxes on mobiles that are capable of data service. Add to this additional cost on petrol, domestic gas, overall general inflation, these are only going to have a negative impact on India's growth. *I can't see an iota of sincerity in the govt's effort to take India forward*.



not directly related to the topic, but i was reminded of what a friend of mine told me once. his father happens to be in the PMO. a long time back, he told something like that the bigshots of AICC are frequently called in for 'meetings' at irregular hours, and the discussion that ensues on a given subject tends to conclude with a decision taken NOT on the basis of whether it would be in the general interest of the citizens/nation or not, but whether it would be in the interest of the party or not! 
this seemed to solidly back all the popular urban legends about politics in general & CONgress in particular.


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## NoasArcAngel (Mar 7, 2013)

tkin said:


> Its as real as the game showed it, China controls the material to make everything, every gawd damn chip out there, its worse than oil on Saudi's as China literally has 95%+ market share, and worse yet, China plans to stop export, that means, either come and make your stuff in China or GTFO: Rare earth element - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Global rare earth production section).





wait are we forgetting something? EMP ..... ? bomb? 
umm seriously man? China makes electronics all right... but even today ground breaking technology and most importantly your "CPU Chip" is made in Malaysia/ Taiwan

so china can screw itself, obviously prices will go up a little if china does that by maybe 15-20% but even then we arent doomed.

oh and umm you forgot something, somethings are just assembled in china, not made there. :Wink:

*www.tuaw.com/2012/01/22/why-apples-products-are-designed-in-california-but-assembled/

Look at the back of your iPhone, or your iPad, or on the bottom of your Mac. You'll see the following words embossed somewhere: "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." Many Americans, all the way up to the President himself, have wondered why Apple has outsourced virtually all of its manufacturing overseas. At a dinner with several top US technology executives last year, President Obama asked Steve Jobs flat out what it would take to bring those jobs back to the US. According to Jobs, there's simply no way for it to happen.

Why not? Why can't iPhones, iPads, and all the rest of Apple's magic gadgets be built in the States? More generally, why can't more US-based consumer electronics and computer companies do their manufacturing work domestically, helping to create American jobs and boost the struggling economy?

The New York Times asked that question, and after an extremely well-researched report involving interviews with both former and current executives at Apple, the answer the Times found is both simple and chilling: iPhones aren't made in America because they just can't be. The infrastructure and labor force doesn't exist at the levels necessary to support Apple's operations -- it's not even close.

The Chinese factory where most iPhones reach final assembly employs 230,000 workers. I just asked Siri how many cities in the US have a population higher than that, and the answer was a mere 83 cities -- and that's total population, not workforce. With an average labor force of around 65 percent of the population, only 50 US cities are large enough to provide that kind of labor pool... and even in the biggest US city of them all, New York, 230,000 people still amounts to almost three percent of the city's entire population. Can you imagine three out of every hundred New Yorkers on an assembly line, cranking out iPhones every day?

Over the past couple of years, we have heard a great deal concerning working conditions at factories owned by Foxconn. The Chinese manufacturing company is responsible for assembling consumer electronics for most of the major vendors out there, including Apple. Around a fourth of those 230,000 people live in company-owned dorms or barracks right on factory property; that's almost 60,000 people living and working at the factory. Many of the people at "Foxconn City" work six days a week, twelve hours a day, and they earn less than US$17 per day. It may sound inhumane by American standards, but these jobs are in high demand in China -- so much so that Jennifer Rigoni, former worldwide supply demand manager for Apple, told the New York Times that Foxconn "could hire 3,000 people overnight."

Those are just a couple examples of how the scale, speed, and efficiency of Chinese manufacturing outstrips anything the US is currently capable of. But the Times' report is full of more evidence, and it's damning. Even though the 200,000 assembly-line workers putting part A into slot B could potentially be classified as unskilled labor, the 8700 industrial engineers overseeing the process can't be -- and according to the Times, finding that many qualified engineers in the States would take nine months. Chinese manufacturers found them all in 15 days.

With the notable exception of the A5 processor, most of the components used to make the iPhone are also manufactured overseas, many of them within a relatively short distance of the final assembly plant. Shipping those components to any potential US-based factories would incur greater costs, and even worse from Apple's perspective, manufacturing delays.

Traditional defenses of outsourcing of manufacturing jobs have revolved around cost. "It costs more money to build in America," the reasoning goes; "You have to pay your workers more, you have to pay benefits, insurance, higher taxes. Everything costs more." Since companies want to make a profit, that added cost inevitably gets passed on to the consumer in inflated prices for goods.

To exaggerate the point, many have claimed that an American-manufactured iPhone would cost thousands of dollars. It turns out that's hyperbole; according to the New York Times, the increased cost of paying American wages to workers would add $65 to the cost of an iPhone. The other costs, added together, probably wouldn't drive the unsubsidized price of a 16 GB iPhone 4S over US$1000. But the dollar cost of manufacturing in America isn't the biggest issue that's driving Apple's decision to outsource manufacturing to China. Instead, it's about who can build the greatest number of iPhones within the shortest period of time, all while remaining flexible and instantaneously adaptable to Apple's needs. According to one current Apple executive, "The US has stopped producing people with the skills we need."

The Times provides a telling example from the early days of the iPhone, before it ever hit the market. It's hard to believe now, but originally the iPhone's screen was going to be made from the same scratch-prone plastic that graced the fronts of its contemporaneous iPod models. In mid-2007, just over a month before the iPhone was scheduled to hit stores for the first time ever, Jobs realized the folly of using that plastic when the screen of the iPhone prototype he was carrying in his jeans pocket had accumulated dozens of scratches. "I won't sell a product that gets scratched. I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks."

Anyone who knows how Jobs worked knows that he wasn't bluffing -- if the iPhone didn't meet his standards, it wouldn't go on sale, period. Six months of anticipation had driven demand for the first iPhone into a frenzy, so Apple knew it was going to have to crank them out as quickly as possible. But the last-second change to what was arguably one of the iPhone's most central components meant initiating the kind of mad scramble that simply wouldn't be possible in US manufacturing. Apple would have been an industry laughingstock for as long as it took to overcome the manufacturing delay. Instead, what might have taken months to transpire in the US took place in six short weeks; Apple sourced a virtually scratchproof glass from Corning, and Chinese factories rapidly managed to integrate it into the existing iPhone design.

As it's an American company reaping unprecedented financial rewards, many Americans have lamented the fact that the rewards coming back into America are so comparatively meager. Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States, less than a fifth the number of contractor employees assembling iPhones at one Chinese factory. One could argue that Apple's success has come at the expense of the American manufacturing workforce, but if the New York Times' report is anything to go by, it seems the workforce Apple would have needed in America never existed to begin with.


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