Apple has begun manufacturing the Mac mini in Malaysia, reports Nikkei Asia. Almost all of the Macs have been manufactured in China for years now. The Mac Pro has been the only exception as its assembled in the United States.
The move of Mac mini’s manufacturing from China to Malaysia is part of the larger plan of decentralising manufacturing. The whole of the tech industry is looking for alternative locations other than China to have manufacturing or assembling plants.
MacBooks to soon follow (different location)
The report from Nikkei Asia also adds that Apple is planning to move the manufacturing of its MacBook line-up to Vietnam sometime in the near future. The new M1 Macs are also being manufactured in China at the moment.
Apple is reportedly planning to announce new high-end computers powered by a new M1X or M2 chip. Last year, the company released its first ARM based chip for the Mac. The MacBook Air, the 13” base MacBook Pro, and the Mac mini are now powered by the M1 chip.
“Apple and many other tech companies all want out-of-China production capacities, and that has not slowed even though the U.S. has a new president,” one supply chain manager said. “And they are studying not only peripheral products. Apple, for example, aims to build capacity in new locations — mostly Southeast Asia nations — for multiple core products, such as iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, AirPods and others. It was hard to imagine that two years ago, but now, nothing is impossible to shift.”
The future of the Mac is interesting as Apple transitions to Apple Silicon from Intel over 2021 and 2022. The company is also expected to make some major changes to the design of the MacBook Pro and the iMac. A new 14” MacBook Pro is reportedly under the works.