Apple is preparing to shift some production of its Mac mini to the US as part of the company’s ongoing efforts to appease Trump administration pressure for domestic investment. Manufacturing is scheduled to begin later this year at the Foxconn facility in north Houston, Texas, which currently assembles Apple’s AI servers.
“Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing, and we are proud to significantly expand our footprint in Houston with production of the Mac mini starting later this year,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the announcement. “We have begun shipping advanced AI servers from Houston ahead of schedule, and we are excited to accelerate that work even further.”
The development is part of Apple’s plan to invest $600 billion in the US over the next four years, a commitment made after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on Apple products manufactured overseas. However, most of the $600 billion spending is not tied to expanding domestic production.
in an interview with wall street journalApple Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan said the goal is to increase U.S. production of the Mac mini to meet local demand, but the company will continue to build thousands of desktop computers in Asia. Apple began manufacturing some of its Mac Pro computers in Austin, Texas, in 2013, but Khan said production at that facility has been reduced due to low demand.
While the Mac mini is Apple’s most affordable desktop computer, it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s total sales and less than 5 percent of global Mac sales, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates. Khan said Apple is optimistic about expanding Mac mini production in Houston because demand is higher and more reliable than the Mac Pro. Both are just a fraction of the 240 million iPhones the company sells each year, and Apple currently has no plans to shift iPhone production from Asia to the US.
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