When Tim Cook said that Apple was planning to bring some of its Mac manufacturing stateside, almost everyone thought that he was referring to moving production of Apple’s high-end Mac Pro line into the U.S. A new report by Digitimes, however, hints that it may actually be the Mac mini line that Apple plans on bringing to America.
Apple will be moving its Mac mini production line into the U.S. and will use Foxconn’s American manufacturing plants to produce the devices. Foxconn, Apple’s major Chinese production company, has 15 facilities within the U.S. that the company is likely to use for manufacturing the Mac mini.
The report also mentions that Foxconn is looking to hire employees to help implement new automated production lines within its American factories. If production in Foxconn’s American plants was mainly automated, this would help reduce a large percentage of the production costs that saw Apple choose foreign manufacturing in the first place.
Digitimes anticipates that roughly 1.8 million Mac minis will be shipped in 2013. This makes a nice test market for Apple as it represents a small percentage of their overall Mac product line, yet it is still much larger than the small niche market that is the Mac Pro.
Image Credit: Cult of Mac
