Following Tim Cook's confirmation of Apple shifting Mac production back into the United States, Hewlett-Packard has responded to its competitor's move.
In addition to pointing out that itself and Compaq have been manufacturing PCs since its inception, the firm stressed that it's already ahead of Apple in the race to bring more computer assembly back to the region. "Lots of noise...about Apple moving Mac production back to the U.S.... [We] wanted to offer HP's story," it said.
"HP PCs have been assembled in the U.S. since the beginning," the company said. "HP workstations and commercial desktop PCs are manufactured in Indianapolis, and HP servers are manufactured in Houston. These manufacturing facilities employ hundreds of people and produce billions of dollars' worth of products."
HP added that out of the PCs sold in the U.S., more than a third of business desktop PCs and all workstation PCs are assembled in America. It added that it'll assemble 2.9 million PCs in the region this year.
"There's a significant amount of customization...it's a higher value product than we might do in Asia. A higher level of customers that need build-to-order and close proximity," Tony Prophet, senior vice president of operations at HP, told CNET.
"We find that we are better able to serve our customers when we're closer, versus building them in China and shipping them by sea. The labor arbitrage is not really a driving factor," he added, referring to desktop production in North America and Europe. "We're marginally moving even some consumer PC [assembly] back to North America. Doing less of that in China."
Apple CEO Tim Cook had said that factories based in the U.S. will handle "some" of the Mac production that's currently being carried out in regions outside America.
HP, however, stressed that its production in the U.S. isn't limited to just personal computers. Printing components are made in Corvallis, Oregon and San Diego, California.
