Inside Apple's iPod factories

What most people in the west can't understand is that these people will happily work for people like Apple in China in the factories as it means they have a job, the wages might not seem like an awful lot to us, but to them it's a decent wage. Granted they lose part of it as they normally sleep, eat and work in the same building but they still make more money than normal. Our major supplier was bought out by the Chinese and I still remember when I was in Italy chatting to the new Chinese owners about their factory, apparently the staff canteen can hold around 500 people at any gien time and is 3 stories high, the staff have beds in part of the factory and the company takes a percentage of their wages to house and feed them for 9 months of the year.
 
vonhelmet said:
On a wage of £27 a month, they would just about afford one iPod in a year.

Quite a large divide between how much we pay for stuff, and how much it costs to make them.

Not saying I have a solution, and not saying that maybe £27 isn't fair... it just seems a bit strange that we in the West want expensive things, which clearly aren't very expensive at all to make, and the middle man (Apple) wants to make huge profits.

Ah, capitalism.
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Aha, this is just the kind of comment that the article is supposed to produce.

Believe it or not, the price you pay minus the base manufacturing cost of an iPod is not Apple's profit - there are lots of other costs too.

That said yes, Apple does have a larger margin than most - but that's the same with all upmarket brands.
 
Beansprout said:
Aha, this is just the kind of comment that the article is supposed to produce.
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Didn't read the article, but have probably read plenty of similar ones.

Beansprout said:
Believe it or not, the price you pay minus the base manufacturing cost of an iPod is not Apple's profit - there are lots of other costs too.
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Yes, there are, but this dichotomy between East and West is at it's strongest in the factories where the West's goods are made by the East's workers. It highlights the extent of the divide when we spend our loose change on something that a worker there wouldn't be able to afford in several years.

Beansprout said:
That said yes, Apple does have a larger margin than most - but that's the same with all upmarket brands.
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True, which is why I avoid big brands as best I can. This last bit is editorial though, so needn't be quoted in further posts.
 
merlin said:
£27 a month may well be a decent wage in China.

Just a thought.
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Zefan said:
I hate all this crap about us underpaying them. People will only work if they WANT to, no one makes people work. If they want to work for that salary, then we're actually doing them a favor.
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Exactly!

We have to stop trying to compare their rate of pay to our own standards/expectations.

This is why companies out-source factories to places like China - people are willing to work for a low wage (by western standards), which thus means the company can maximize profits!

It`s simple to me.
 
Cueball said:
This is why companies out-source factories to places like China - people are willing to work for a low wage (by western standards), which thus means the company can maximize profits!

It`s simple to me.
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It's simple if we accept profit as the only goal in life.

PS: Your apostrophe is above your right shift key. That's a backtick.
 
A guy I know loosely is selling them on ebay - he's getting them from a US Apple approved distributer (who's making money on them) and then he himself is making over £100 each with selling them massively under high street prices.

Everyone's taking a very healthy cut. Retailers/wholesalers are making almost as much, if not more than Apple.
 
an entire family can easily survive on £27 a week in china

my friend who was lecturer there was getting paid 5 grand a year, and that was a special arrangement cos it was so high (he was on the same as the head of deptartment) - and he saved 99% of that money as everything is so cheap.
 
aardvark said:
an entire family can easily survive on £27 a week in china

my friend who was lecturer there was getting paid 5 grand a year, and that was a special arrangement cos it was so high (he was on the same as the head of deptartment) - and he saved 99% of that money as everything is so cheap.
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The median urban workers wage in China is c€130/month - higher than India about 2/3 that of Russia and roughly in line with Bulgaria.

So it would appear that Apple are not a high payer - although the manufacturer may well be a supplier rather than part of apple.
 
Stupid PC-do-gooder people, Remember these countries are usually poor, all though £27 is nothing to us its probably a fair bit to them. when we did this with Nike and other big companies, factory workers started getting paid more than police, teachers ect. that is not good for them, there country or there economy..
 
divosuk said:
And anyone that doesn't already understand how cheap labour works in this day and age must have been living on an Island for the last 30 years or so
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Does Great Britain count? It's an island after all... ;)
 
Apple disgust me. Not because of this, but because of their rip-off prices and refusal to replace anything that breaks.

The iPod nano costs about £30/unit to produce. They are sold for MUCH more.
 
Here is the actual article

WELCOME TO IPOD CITY

THEY sleep 100 to a room, toil for 15 hours a day and are paid just £27 month.

This is life in iPod City, once the Chinese fishing village of Shenzhen but now home to the factories that churn out millions of Apple's astonishingly popular music players every year.

Relentless demand for the world's coolest gadget means production lines never come to a standstill. In the UK alone Apple has sold more than two million of the MP3 players with their iconic white headphones.

But despite Apple's carefully cultivated Californian-cool image, they are assembled in China by staff such as Zhou Yan Hua.

As a line manager Zhou earns £80 a month - almost three times the salary of a new worker and just enough to free him from the regimented, spartan factory dormitories.

"The dorms are single-sex, with more than 100 people in a single large room," he says. "They're really overcrowded. There are too many people for comfort but they are free.

"Now I pay rent and I have to share a bed with my colleague, who works a different shift. It costs £20 a month but it is better than the dorm. They are very heavily monitored. There's even a guard in the dormitory. And no visitors are allowed.

"The factory is very strict and there are two places where you are searched. Both have metal detectors so you cannot take anything into work such as your phone. You even have to take off your watch."

Security is tight throughout the complex, with police on gates, CCTV and barbed wire everywhere to prevent industrial espionage. The workers are discouraged from speaking to strangers for the same reason.

A year ago Zhou left his home in central China and joined the flood of workers heading for the industrial sprawl of Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong.

In 1980 it was just a sleepy fishing village, but then the communist government designated it a special economic zone. Now it's home to 12 million people.

One of the biggest employers is Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, which manufactures the iPod nano for Apple. Foxconn has 200,000 workers beavering away in 10 large factories and 11 research units in a sprawling complex covering several square kilometres. Salaries start at £27 a month.

OUTSIDE, posters appeal for workers aged over 16 - the legal working age - while a steady stream of new arrivals are herded into the dormitories, carrying their few possessions and maybe a bucket to wash their clothes.

They're guaranteed jobs but under strict rules and discipline, and often work seven days a week, forgoing many freedoms and pleasures western workers take for granted.

As well as no visitors being allowed on the huge site, staff rarely venture out of the heavily guarded gates. Instead of meals out or films, any cash they save is usually sent home to their families.

An insider says: "They get up, work, eat a small bowl of noodles and rice, do their washing, go to bed, get up and do it all over again."

After sleeping in shifts, they slip into a uniform of jeans and beige jacket and head for the factory in a long, orderly crocodile. The only break from the routine comes with what's called "professional education".

Like soldiers on parade, the young men and women are ordered to line up on the factory roof and drilled for up to three hours, often in searing heat.

On occasions they're required to stand still for hours without moving a muscle.

These extraordinary exercises were devised to ensure the workers toe the line.

China is experiencing an unprecedented capitalist-style economic boom, but many of its methods are still rooted in communist forms of control.

An insider says: "They discourage individualism, effectively turning the workers into robots as much as they can. Except, of course, they're a lot cheaper than robots."

It's a lifestyle which has already become all too familiar to Zang Lan, 21. She's been working at Foxconn for a month on the assembly line for Apple computers and is already exhausted.

"The job here is so-so," she says, "but we have to work too hard, I am always tired and am still in training, which I do not like.

"It is like being in the army. They make us stand still for three hours. If we move we are punished. They do not hit us or anything, but they might make us stand still for longer or make the boys do push-ups.

"We have to work overtime if we are told to and can only go back to the dormitories when our boss tells us we can go. We do not have any choice about overtime.

"The longest day I have worked so far was 15 hours, when I stayed until 11.30pm. I felt so tired."

Compared to European working and living conditions the lifestyle sounds incredibly harsh. But industry experts insist these are not sweatshops.

Gary Bowerman, editor of the Shanghai Business Review, says: "They do work long hours, they don't get paid very much, but the factories are state-of-the-art. They really are impressive.

"Yes, it's monotonous and routine, but the quality of the factories is even better than in Europe. They're clean, hi-tech, even air-conditioned - not sweatshop stuff. They're purpose-built for high-volume production and have to turn out high quantity and high quality."

Last year Apple achieved a record billion-dollar profit, boosted by the launch of the nano, the size of a credit card and weighing just 40grams (1.5oz).

IT was so popular that Apple sold a million in just 17 days, including one to the Vatican for Pope Benedict XVI.

Although it is one of America's most prestigious brands, nearly all Apple's products are assembled abroad.

While Foxconn makes the nano, the iPod Shuffle is put together by Asustek in Suzhou, two hours outside Shanghai at another sprawling site - the size of eight football pitches and employing 50,000 people - bordered by a canal and river and surrounded by barbed wire to deter intruders.

Its six gates are manned by zealous security guards, checking all workers' bags as they enter and leave. Security is especially tight at gate No 5, which leads to factory eight - where the iPod shuffles are manufactured. A 26-year-old security guard, who would not reveal his name, explains why.

"Factory eight is mostly women as I they are more honest than men," he says. ' "And the iPod shuffle is very easy to steal because it is so small."

The guard knew speaking might put his job on the line, but he finally relented... in the hope that he'd be rewarded beyond his wildest dreams. The payment he asked for: an iPod.

THE iPOD FACTFILE

THE iPod digital music player was launched in 2001. More than 42 million have been sold, earning Apple around £5.2billion

TWO million iPods have been sold in the UK.

IN 2003 Apple launched the iTunes Music Store. More than one billion tracks have been downloaded.

THE store's global share of digital album and singles sales is estimated at around 70 percent.
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ipodcity.jpg
 
What about football shirts you buy? They are being made in poor countries. Nike and many big companies are doing that already.

Even BT is moving their call centres to India so what's so new about this one?
 
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