Apple's supply chain big move: some Mac Mini production will shift from Asia to the United States this year

Apple plans to move some of its Mac Mini desktop computer production from Asia to the United States, according to The Wall Street Journal. This is part of its latest effort to bring certain segments of its extensive supply chain back to the U.S.

Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan stated that the new manufacturing operations will begin later this year at a Foxconn factory north of Houston. He revealed this plan during a rare tour of the factory with The Wall Street Journal, where two main buildings were shown. One building is where Foxconn is assembling Apple’s AI servers, and the other is currently a large warehouse that will be converted into a 220,000-square-foot (approximately 20,439 square meters) Mac Mini manufacturing space.

IT House notes that in recent years, Apple’s domestic manufacturing in the U.S. has been focused on specific areas, such as its partnership with Foxconn to open a new factory in Houston in 2026 for producing AI servers equipped with high-end M5 processors. Moving the Mac Mini production line to the U.S. is another step in bringing parts of its supply chain home, closely tied to the complex current tariff environment. Previously, the U.S. government pressured Apple to relocate production of key products like the iPhone back to the U.S., even considering an additional 25% import tariff on iPhones sold in the U.S. However, several analysts have pointed out that, considering costs, supply chain efficiency, and labor skills, Apple prefers to bear the extra tariffs rather than relocate iPhone assembly to the U.S., which would be less economical. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman analyzed that Apple is unlikely to move iPhone production to the U.S. in the near future mainly due to high costs. Over the past decade, the only Apple product fully assembled in the U.S. was the 2013 Mac Pro, but after the 2019 redesign, that line was also moved to China.

Therefore, Apple has chosen to use the relatively niche and potentially more controllable Mac Mini production line as a pilot for bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. This strategy aligns with other measures Apple has taken to avoid tariffs, such as importing more iPhones from India to benefit from lower tariffs (26%) and offset the higher tariffs faced when manufacturing in China.