Nintendo confirms it’s moving some China production amid trade war
Company to make partial manufacturing shift to Vietnam this summer
Nintendo is to move some Switch console production out of China amid the nation’s ongoing trade war with the US.
Confirming an earlier Nikkei report, a spokesperson told Reuters Nintendo plans to make the partial production shift to Vietnam this summer in a bid to diversify manufacturing sites.
Nintendo currently outsources almost all Switch console production to contract manufacturers in China like Foxconn.
Nikkei reported last week that Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony were among a host of major tech companies looking to shift substantial production capacity out of China.
Leading electronics makers are unconvinced that a trade war truce agreed by US president Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at June’s G20 summit will last.
The US has already imposed tariffs on more than $250 billion worth of Chinese products and had been planning to target an additional $300 billion following a breakdown in negotiations, before the countries announced plans to resume trade talks last month.
Prior to the recent G20 summit, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony jointly requested that game consoles be removed from a list of products the Trump administration was considering imposing tariffs on.
The companies claimed placing tariffs on consoles “would have a ripple effect of harm that extends throughout the video game ecosystem”.
Almost 40% of the 17 million Switch consoles sold in fiscal 2018 were sold in the Americas, mainly in the US.
