Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Most manufacturers don’t make their own phones. There are exceptions, of course, with Samsung being the most well-known, but others just get an EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Services) provider that handles assembly. Some even go a step further and partner up with an ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) that not only makes their phones but designs them as well, inside and out.
Google and Apple don’t go that far. Both design their own phones, and they even design their CPUs. But they don’t make a single phone since neither of them has any factories set up. They both work with an EMS provider, which actually happens to be the same one in some cases.
Did you even know that Apple and Google don't make their own phones? 33 votes Yes, I did. 91 % I had no idea. 9 %
But why is that? One could argue that it would make more sense for both companies to handle manufacturing on their own for more control and higher margins, but the story isn’t as simple as it may seem on paper. Here are five reasons why the two giants — and most other smartphone brands — don’t make their own phones, and why that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
1. The economics don’t always make sense
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
The truth is that most phone brands don’t sell enough phones for an investment in their own factory — or factories — to make sense. We like to talk about Pixel phones a lot in the tech community since they are great phones owned by a big brand, but the reality is they don’t even crack the top five globally in sales. Investing in a factory makes more sense for a company like Apple since it sells a lot more across its product portfolio, but there are other issues holding it back.
For Apple and Google, building their own factory in a country other than the US would be a PR nightmare. It’s not something that politics and a lot of US consumers would be happy about. But building a factory in the States comes with a lot of financial implications that are hard to overlook.
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