HMD Global Starts Manufacturing in Europe with the ‘Made in Hungary’ Nokia XR21 | Hacker News Reader

HMD Global Starts Manufacturing in Europe with the ‘Made in Hungary’ Nokia XR21

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53 pointsgslin63 comments

I believe the only chance for EU to compete with China was to move all manufacturing to cheap post-soviet areas and build local Shenzhens there with high logistical integration. That ship seems to have sailed as wealth extraction was more important and now EU is falling into irrelevance globally (no meaningful GDP growth since 2008 whereas US and China's GDP exploded in the same timeframe).

The chance now is expansion. Western Balkans, one day Ukraine.

Lots to figure out there though.

I think that's what they tried to do, and partially succeeded. There is a lot of manufacturing happening in Eastern Europe. Not to the scale of China, of course, local bickering and very strong red-tape can have a dampening effect on investments.

GDP growth is not the indicator we should be looking at now. It is not compatible anymore with a viable planet for the years to come.

> chance for EU to compete with China was to move all manufacturing to cheap post-soviet areas

Which areas in EU (or even Europe) would that be? Baltic states hardly cheap anymore (or won't be soon), Caucasus is hot mess and -stans are nowhere near the EU as well as their neighborhood is unstable as it can be

I was talking in past tense. The chance is gone.

> I was talking in past tense. The chance is gone

I think you underestimate the evolution of salaries in China.

Average salaries in Area like Shenzhen or Guangzhou are now superior to what you would get in countries like Romania, Moldavia, Ukrain, Balkans or even some Baltic countries.

Even salaries in western part of China in place like Chongqin start to catch up.

The reasons I believe are mainly loss of competency and political will in Europe. The UE praised itself as a model of liberalism for decades, it is hard to promote any form of protectionism after that.

The point here is that nobody can beat Shenzhen-like logistic integration and economies of scale and EU squandered that chance, the comparative advantage it once had.

I wonder where they've set the bar in terms of security. Are the phones 99% manufactured in China, but ship two pieces, screw them together and call it 'Made in EU'. Are the phones shipped in some tamper evident bags or have anti-interdiction like Librem 5[0]? Have they build any advanced security features for the phone, or is it mainly for ticking a box in some compliance 'yes yes, a local made phone'.

[0]: https://puri.sm/posts/anti-interdiction-on-the-librem-5-usa/

The current HMD models are being manufactured by Foxconn in China and there's also a wide range of Foxconn middleware running on the phones. Foxconn also has a factory in Hungary, so probably the manufacturing partner is the same for these European made models too. I don't know if there's any difference in the security posture.

Foxconn is Taiwanese.

I would take Taiwanese hardware made on European ground over stuff made in the PRC anytime.

True, but Foxconn has factories in the PRC

The Nokia phones were "Android One" at least when the one I'm typing this was made so should be straightforward Android.

The main change I do is to use Niagara launcher and Firefox browser.

Purism doesn't do anything to secure the connection between their supplier and themselves, so I don't think I would consider them the best example: https://www.reddit.com/r/Purism/comments/my8u2l/psa_librem_1...

Sadly after a good start and several models running Android One, I feel the current Nokia HMD lineup is a bit underwhelming.

Nowadays Samsung obliterates the competition in the 200~400€ price range, at least in dimensions that matter to me: display quality, decent camera and battery life, 4/5 years of security updates.

>Nowadays Samsung obliterates the competition in the 200~400€ price range, at least in dimensions that matter to me: display quality, decent camera and battery life, 4/5 years of security updates.

This. The A-series like A34 and A54 are simply unbeatable in Europe for those price ranges and budgets most consumers have set for phones. Almost nobody I personally know spends €1000+ Euros on an iPhone or Samsung S/Ultra series when that's 1-2 months rent, but granted I don't live in ultra wealthy Norway or Switzerland.

Here's a well kept secret, if you want a modern 5G phone with removable battery, water and dust resistance, headphone jack, micro-SD card, PTT, extra loud speakers, then get the Samsung Galaxy Xcover 6 Pro. It's crazy how unknown this phone is yet ticks almost all the right boxes most Android users are screaming for.

All these series seem to be virtually unknown in the US though, probably to not cannibalize their much more expensive S/Ultra series in the wealthy market that is the US where nobody bats an eye at ~$1000+ phones.

I'm firmly in the mid-range segment of the market, and made some good and some not so good choices over the years (including a Nokia with Android One for my mom, which was not a good choice because of the many hardware issues). The A52 I currently use has been hands down the best one, closely followed by a Pixel 4A for my wife. I don't love the whole One UI thing, and would prefer Android One or whatever the stock Android is called these days, but it's just a polished product, in terms of hardware, software and security updates.

I made my dad buy a Pixel 7a on sale at €290 but that was fairly exceptional, I haven't seen it this cheap again.

Get a Galaxy A5x has been my go-to recommendation otherwise.

Where was a Pixel 7a on sale at such a steep discount? In my area, the cheapest it ever was recorded was 460 Euros.

I dont know if the pixel he was referencing is new or refurbished but I'd keep an eye on Swappa/BackMarket, if you're in the EU and looking to buy a used relatively new phone for a cheap price.

I would also appreciate an answer to the same question FirmwareBurner has asked.

Making a "European Edition" in a country that's constantly fighting to undermine the EU (and EU values like LGBTI+ rights and democracy), great idea. Definitely not buying this one.

Source for the democracy claim: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/15/hungary-is-no-...

PS:

> “Unfortunately, due to our customers being in various security-conscious industries, we’re not allowed to tell anyone which countries we are producing these devices in, simply to keep it as secure as possible,” HMD Global chief marketing officer Lars Silberbauer said at the time.

Umm what? "Made in xxxx" documentation with a product is actually required by many security-conscious institutions such as customs.

Wasn't that a big selling point of capitalism anyways? Have trade connections with even your enemy so you're less likely to start wars with them. Maybe this is a similar strategy that could get Hungary to undermine EU less because of the new economic connections?

The article (and possibly the press release) seems to avoid EU in favour of Europe. But yes, it's not a great choice as far as countries is concerned; I think most countries would vote for them to leave if that were an option.

> Making a "European Edition" in a country that's constantly fighting to undermine the EU

Almost all phones are currently produced in a country that genocide some of its minorities, support child labor and claim publicly the right to invade/obliterate his neighbor. And that does not seem to disturb you much ?

We need more Silicon and electronics made in Europe.

Hungary is definitively not a democracy paradise nor a human right haven, but it is already significantly better than anything we do have right now.

> Almost all phones are currently produced in a country that genocide some of its minorities, support child labor and claim publicly the right to invade/obliterate his neighbor. And that does not seem to disturb you much ?

It does, yes. My phone was made in Thailand by a Korean company but indeed a lot of the supply chain involves China.

> We need more Silicon and electronics made in Europe.

Agreed, it just feels like Hungary gets rewarded for its actions here. And making it a proud "European Edition" in a country that is so contrary is just a bit extra sour.

Hungary is not democracy.

With European wages being higher than their Asian counterparts, companies have to pick poor countries to produce these things, even inside Europe. Those tend to be the ex-Soviet countries with rather extremist governments.

I try to avoid Hungarian products as it's the only way I can affect the country and its government (the EU is powerless against its bullshit). However, let's not kid ourselves into thinking other countries smartphones are manufactured in are any better. India and China are not exactly progressive by EU standards.

If the EU model and non-EU model are both sold for the same price, I'd buy the Hungarian smartphone, even if I'd wish HMD would've picked any other European country.

> Those tend to be the ex-Soviet countries with rather extremist governments.

Not really though. Romania for example is poorer and not extremist in that sense. They are not pro-Russian (especially considering they are pretty worried about what's happening in Moldova/Transnistria)

But for now it's really just Hungary and as of this weekend Slovakia that are pro-Russian. (edit: Not Poland indeed sorry scotty79)

Poland is as far from pro-Russian as possible. Second only to Ukraine I think. We currently have bad kleptocratic populist government which in the last years lead our country back towards the 90-s (which were not glorious in Poland), but even that government treats Russia as an enemy from the start. The only thing that can be said is that due to their intellectual deficiencies they are susceptible to Russian propaganda, intended to undermine EU.

You're right, I should not have put Poland in the pro-Russian camp. I know it's not. I heard it stems from what the Soviets did at Warsaw near the end of the war (apparently they waited outside a few weeks to give the Germans time to kill as many remaining civilians as possible so they could set up shop themselves)

But it is populist and not EU-friendly right now. Hopefully it will change.

> apparently they waited outside a few weeks to give the Germans time to kill as many remaining civilians as possible so they could set up shop themselves

That's... a misrepresentation of a complex historical event, to say the least. Polish government-in-exile made a bet that Home Army forces could overthrow Germans on their own and restore 1939 border with Soviet Union. And Home Army explicitly planned Operation Tempest to be executed before Red Army liberated the whole Poland. Should they succeeded, Soviets would have to negotiate with a sovereign Poland, instead of coming there as a heroes-who-liberated-Poland-from-Germans.

As the history goes, the bet failed an the uprising was drowned in blood. But it's stupid to blame Soviets for not helping the regime which was profoundly anti-Soviet.

History knows no ifs, but should Poles cooperate back then, probably they could achieved the same result with a lot less of blood.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising

Isn't that what it says there?

> The Red Army did not reinforce resistance fighters or provide air support. Recently declassified documents show Joseph Stalin tactically halted his forces to let the operation fail and allow the Polish resistance to be crushed.[19]

However I didn't have time to read the whole thing. Maybe I'm cherrypicking from the first paragraphs :)

Of course the Red Army did not support resistance fighters! Resistance was both anti-nazi and anti-communist. Despite also fighting against nazi, they were not their allies, Soviets had zero reasons to help them. And resistance fighters knew that and didn't expect any help from Soviets.

The way OP frames the situation it sounds like the resistance failed because Soviets didn't help them. In reality resistance failed because they've miscalculated their powers against Germans, and because they did everything to ensure that Soviets won't help them.

> Hopefully it will change.

We are about to have an election in few weeks but I wouldn't count on major shift yet because being populist works and their internally targeted propaganda knows no bounds. I think we need to suffer another 4 years under them unless they screw up real bad.

Romania has almost twice Hungary's GDP.

And also more than double population.

Per capita it is about 14k (RO) vs 18k (HU).

Would you say that the US(76k per capita) is poorer than Lichtenstein(184k)?

Yes ;) Average Lichtensteiner is way better off than average American. Lichtenstein is a very bad target for similar comparison, exactly because they are what they are.

So we're not talking about the country, then, we're talking about the populace.

Do the wages you pay to manufacturing workers have anything to do with the total wealth of a state? That's how this conversation started. Is it cheaper to manufacture things in Liechtenstein or in Hungary?

According to Eurostat⁰, Romania has a slightly higher(13000€) average annual full-time adjusted salary per employee than Hungary (12600€).

⓪ - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d...

It's a tax haven for rich people just like Andorra and Monaco so yeah. People are very well off there.

In fact I'm sure the country is even richer if you compare the wealth of the average citizen instead of GDP because not much (goods or services) is actually produced from there. It's more like a place you go to after you've already made your fortune.

Per capita they don't, they're about the same

>companies have to pick poor countries to produce these things

I'm not Hungarian but calling Hungary just a "poor country" feels a bit insulting. Yes it's not US or Germany wealthy, but by global standards of poverty it's quite wealthy and developed.

>Those tend to be the ex-Soviet countries with rather extremist governments.

1. Hungary was never soviet. The only Eastern-EU members who were part of the former USSR were Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which are not very extremist (or at least I don't hear about them in the news).

2. Extremism in various shapes and forms, is on the steep rise in the last ~5 or so years, almost everywhere in Europe, including even the more wealthy, progressive and tolerant societies, due mostly to a combination of the following: blatant government corruption with no consequences for the ruling class, shit paying jobs unaffordable housing and ever growing wealth inequality condemning people to a life of serfdom and impoverished retirement, uncontrolled illegal migration, decaying quality of social services and benefits like healthcare and education despite the high taxation, etc.

Angry and unhappy people tend to vent their anger by voting for the anti-establishment extremists despite that being against their best interest: see Brexit also. This is by no means an exclusively Hungarian issue, it just gets parroted the most because Orban makes a good boogie-man for the EU media since he has no filters, but there are other less meme-able political extremists in the EU who don't get as much news time because they're a lot more careful with what they say in public, see Austrian politics.

3. If you consider Poland and Hungary to be "extremist", then what exactly are Turkey, India, Belarus, China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, pre-2022 Russia, including Azerbaijan who's been busy waging a war in Nagorno-Karabakh using western arms and gas money, that's turning into a humanitarian disaster, that the west pretends it doesn't see. All some of the West's closest allies and biggest trading partners, and at the same time some of the worst offenders of human rights violations that make Poland and Hungary look like social and democratic paradises in comparison.

> With European wages being higher than their Asian counterparts

You'd be surprised - the average wage in China is about $1300/month, and in Hungary it's $1425/month.

Only USD 1000 after Hungarian taxes, what do you get to keep in China?

The EU is not totally powerless. Brussels witheld €22bn worth of EU funds until the Orbán government complied. Now they are releasing €13bn in exchange for Hungary's cooperation. Of course, Orbán will continue sabotaging everyone in the EU, along with his pal Karl Nehamer and now Slovakia's Robert Fico.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/billions-frozen-funds-h...

"Perfect" is often the biggest enemy of "good enough". Hungary may not be perfect, but it's a first step away from way way worse places.

OK, but do you not see how they might gain opportunity to thrive with putting democracy in the second place in list of values?

I would happily buy products made in Hungary.

Yeah, also Hungary keeps questionable friends. I suspect that HMD just went with "cheapest" in the EU. I don't see why they didn't just go across the border to Romania or maybe Bulgaria instead.

Uhh Romania is definitely within EU "border" :)

I meant the Hungarian border

Not within Schengen zone, though. Makes logistic slower.

I have a g22 and strongly dislike it. It's the phone that finally convinced me to go to Apple. Though I'd prefer if Google-free Android were practical.

What didn't you like about it?

What other reasons would make you leave the iPhone beyond the Google decoupling?

Pixel + grapheneOS, the most practical privacy phone you can get.

A budget Android phone convinced you to go to a manufacturer whose phones start at about double the price of that budget Android phone, for a basic (SE) phone? You'd prefer a Google-free Android, presumably because it would put you more in control, but you're convinced to go the exact opposite way to a completely locked-down platform?

It's a little bit confusing, is all.

Well, I think what I want _is_ a basic phone. I want a low powered cheap phone that runs an operating system that isn't openly hostile to me. I don't want fancy, big, etc. But I can't find a cheap basic android phone that isn't also user-hostile.

I don't _like_ iOS but my options are

* faff about with Google-free android, not be able to use banking apps, etc.

* Give up and accept google's terms

* Give up and accept Apple's terms

I really wish Ubuntu phone or Firefox OS had taken off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS And Apple's seem better.

How is the quality story of Nokia nowadays? I was disappointed a local shop here in India tried to replace the battery and board with the usb port and got no improvement. The back glass also shattered with one fall. So much for the 1100 days nostalgia.

The XR line is their "rugged" line, it should be somewhat more resistant to falls than your average smartphone.

I'm guessing that's why they chose this model for this enterprise push.

I loved my Nokia N9 made in Finland. Great hardware and the UI was a gem!

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