Manufacture smartphones in Europe and compete with Asia? It’s still possible, and here’s how

“Bocholt salutes Cupertino”! It is a facetious panel in reference to the giant headquarters of Apple which welcomes the visitor at the entrance to the Gigaset factories of this rural German town of 70,000 inhabitants, on the border with the Netherlands. The German landline giant has installed – or rather repatriated – its smartphone production there launched in 2018. Objective: to manufacture in Europe, as close as possible to its customers, terminals which are generally assembled in Asia. An economic as well as a technological challenge, as industrial know-how has been heading for the East for a long time.