Less production of American electronics in Chinese factories, to avoid duties

It could be one of the immediate effects of the Chinese-US trade tension. We are talking about the possibility that some of the world's major PC producers may remove portion of their system manufacturing from the Chinese market, relocate it elsewhere, so as not to be subject to the responsibilities that the U.S. government offers for Chinese products.

About 30 percent of notebook manufacturing is spoken of by businesses like HP, Dell, Microsoft and Amazon planning to move away from China; this proportion is indicative of notebooks sold on the American market each year.

In addition to notebook PCs, we are also talking about other product categories that may no longer come with products, at least for part of the overall volume: the Nikkei Asian Review source mentions smart speakers and consoles, but other types of devices can not be ruled out can follow the same destiny.

Where will these products be manufactured? Certainly not in North America because of labor costs which, compared to the Chinese industry, would not be very competitive. The target is probably in other worldwide areas where manufacturing costs are comparable to those observed in China.

In addition, the change in manufacturing could result in increased cost of manufacturing and hence an upward alignment of product prices. If, on the one hand, the duties associated with importing products from China are avoided, on the other hand, retail prices should be reviewed by producers in order to cope with the rising costs associated with production not in China.