Lenovo joins growing China exodus as manufacturers flee US tariffs — OEM moving production lines to India

Yahoo

08-03-2025

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According to a DigiTimes Asia report, Lenovo announced at Tech World India 2025 that it's moving all PC manufacturing inside that country over the next three years and that it's also preparing to do the same for its AI GPU servers in Pondicherry, India.
Lenovo has produced 12 million units in India, and it's planning to increase that to nearly 17 million units to meet incoming domestic and international demand. Although it didn't mention tariffs, Lenovo, a Chinese-owned company with five factories in China and one in Mexico, owns 12% of the U.S. laptop market. So, Trump's 20% tariff on China and 25% tariff on Mexico will impact its pricing strategy, making its laptops more expensive than the competition.
Lenovo isn't the only company moving out of China to escape Trump's tariffs. ASRock announced in early February that it will move its manufacturing operations to Vietnam and Taiwan. HP made a similar announcement just a few days ago, saying that 90% of products bound for the U.S. will be made outside of the East Asian country by October this year. Even Dell said it's diversifying its supply chain, meaning it will reduce its reliance on Chinese factories to make its products.
Aside from the tariffs, the White House's export controls on the latest AI chips also force some PC parts manufacturers to move their operations. PC Partner, the manufacturer behind Zotac, Inno3D, and Manli brands and one of the largest GPU manufacturers in the world, is moving its headquarters to Singapore, with a rumored production shift from China to Indonesia. Other chip companies like Amkor Technology, Hana Micron, and even Intel are pouring billions of dollars into Vietnam to shift their production away from China.
The tariffs that the Trump administration is placing on Chinese goods are starting to take effect in the computer industry, with some larger companies announcing investments within the U.S. to move manufacturing within its shores. This includes TSMC, which announced an additional $100 billion in spending on three new fabs, two advanced packaging factories, and an R&D center in its Arizona campus. Trump also announced during his speech to the joint session of Congress that other companies, like Apple and Oracle, are investing hundreds of billions of dollars more because they want to avoid the tariffs that he's placed on Canada, Mexico, and China.
However, moving manufacturing inside the U.S. might not be viable for smaller companies. So, they're moving to nations with friendlier ties to the U.S., like India, Taiwan, and Indonesia, that aren't affected by the tariffs. We should note, though, that these moves will likely take years, especially if a particular company does not yet have an existing facility within the region. So, as they wait for their production facilities and supply chains to come online, companies will have no choice but to raise their prices to cover the tariffs the White House has placed on their products.