Navigating the Complexities of Onshoring IT Hardware Production

Our analysts Michael Zezas and Erik Woodring discuss the ways tariffs are rewiring the tech hardware industry and how companies can mitigate the impact of the new U.S. trade policy.

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Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Fixed Income and Public Policy Research.

Erik Woodring: And I'm Erik Woodring, Head of the U.S. IT Hardware team.

Michael Zezas: Today, we continue our tariff coverage with a closer look at the impact on tech hardware. Products such as your smartphone, computers, and other personal devices.

It's Thursday, April 17th at 10am in New York.

President Trump's reciprocal tariffs announcements, followed by a 90 day pause and exemptions have created a lot of turmoil in the tech hardware space. People started panic buying smartphones, worried about rising costs, only to find out that smartphones may or may not be exempted.

As I pointed out on this podcast before, these tariffs are also significantly accelerating the transition to a multipolar world. This process was already well underway before President Trump's second term, but it's gathering steam as trade pressures escalate. Which is why I wanted to talk to you, Erik, given your expertise.

In the multipolar world, IT hardware has followed a China+1 strategy. What is the strategy, and does it help mitigate the impact from tariffs?

Erik Woodring: Historically, most IT hardware products have been manufactured in China. Starting in 2018, during the first Trump administration, there was an effort by my universe to diversify production outside of China to countries friendly with China – including Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Thailand. This has ultimately helped to protect from some tariffs, but this does not make really any of these countries immune from tariffs given what was announced on April 2nd.

Michael Zezas: And what do the current tariffs – recognizing, of course, that they could change – what do those current tariffs mean for device costs and the underlying stocks that you cover?

Erik Woodring: In short, device costs are going up, and as it relates to my stocks, there's plenty of uncertainty. If I maybe dig one level deeper, when the first round of tariffs were announced on April 2nd, the cumulative cost that my companies were facing from tariffs was over $50 billion. The weighted average tariff rate was about 25 per cent. Today, after some incremental announcements and some exemptions, the ultimate cumulative tariff cost that my universe faces is about $7 billion. That is equivalent to an average tariff rate of about 7 per cent. And what that means is that device costs on average will go up about 5 per cent.

Of course, there are some that won't be raised at all. There are some device costs that might go up by 20 to 30 per cent. But ultimately, we do expect prices to go up and as a result, that creates a lot of uncertainties with IT hardware stocks.

Michael Zezas: Okay, so let's make this real for our listeners. Suppose they're buying a new device, a smartphone, or maybe a new laptop. How would these new tariffs affect the consumer price?

Erik Woodring: Sure. Let's use the example of a smartphone. $1000 smartphone typically will be imported for a cost of maybe $500. In this current tariff regime, that would mean cost would go up about $50. So, $1000 smartphone would be $1,050.

You could use the same equivalent for a laptop; and then on the enterprise side, you could use the equivalent of a server, an AI server, or storage – much more expensive. Meaning while the percentage increase in the cost will be the same, the ultimate dollar expense will go up significantly more.

Michael Zezas: And so, what are some of the mitigation strategies that companies might be able to use to lessen the impact of tariffs?

Erik Woodring: If we start in the short term, there's two primary mitigation strategies. One is pulling forward inventory and imports ahead of the tariff deadline to ultimately mitigate those tariff costs. The second one would be to share in the cost of these tariffs with your suppliers. For IT hardware, there's hundreds of suppliers and ultimately billions of dollars of incremental tariff costs can be somewhat shared amongst these hundreds of companies.

Longer term, there are a few other mitigation strategies. First moving your production out of China or out of even some of these China+1 countries to more favorable tariff locations, perhaps such as Mexico. Many products which come from Mexico in my universe are exempted because of the USMCA compliance. So that is a kind of a medium-term strategy that my companies can use.

Ultimately, the medium-term strategy that's going to be most popular is raising prices, as we talked about. But some of my companies will also leverage affordability tools to make the cost ultimately borne out over a longer period of time. Meaning today, if you buy a smartphone over two-year of an installment plan, they could extend this installment plan to three years. That means that your monthly cost will go down by 33 per cent, even if the price of your smartphone is rising.

And then longer term, ultimately, the mitigation tool will be whether you decide to go and follow the process of onshoring. Or if you decide to continue to follow China+1 or nearshoring, but to a greater extent.

Michael Zezas: Right. So, then what about onshoring – that is moving production capacity to the U.S.? Is this a realistic scenario for IT hardware companies?

Erik Woodring: In reality, no. There is some small volume production of IT hardware projects that is done in the United States. But the majority of the IT hardware ecosystem outside of the United States has been done for a specific reason. And that is for decades, my companies have leveraged skilled workers, skilled in tooling expertise. And that has developed over time, that is extremely important. Tech CEOs have said that the reason hardware production has been concentrated in China is not about the cost of labor in the country, but instead about the number of skilled workers and the proximity of those skilled workers in one location. 

There's also the benefit of having a number of companies that can aggregate tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of workers, in a specific factory space. That just makes it much more difficult to do in the United States. So, the headwinds to onshoring would be just the cost of building facilities in the United States. It would be finding the skilled labor. It would be finding resources available for building these facilities. It would also be the decision whether to use skilled labor or humanoids or robots.

Longer term, I think the decision most of my companies will have to face is the cost and time of moving your supply chain, which will take longer than three years versus, you know, the current presidential term, which will last another, call it three and a half years.

Michael Zezas: Okay. And so how does all of this impact demand for tech hardware, and what's your outlook for the industry in the second half of this year?

Erik Woodring: There's two impacts that we're seeing right now. In some cases, more mission critical products are being pulled forward, meaning companies or consumers are going and buying their latest and greatest device because they're concerned about a future pricing increase.

The other impact is going to be generally lower demand. What we're most concerned about is that a pull forward in the second quarter ultimately leads to weaker demand in the second half – because generally speaking, uncertainty, whether that's policy or macro more broadly, leads to more concerns with hardware spending and ultimately a lower level of spending. So any 2Q pull forward could mean an even weaker second half of the year.

Michael Zezas: Alright, Erik, thanks for taking the time to talk.

Erik Woodring: Great. Thanks for speaking, Mike.

Michael Zezas: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.