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ASUS is not broadly reshoring production to the United States. Instead, it has been reallocating U.S.-bound PC and motherboard production away from China toward Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. At its August 13, 2025 Q2 investor conference, ASUS said more than 90% of production in those categories had been distributed across the new regions.
The strategy is best understood as a China-plus-one supply-chain redesign: it reduces dependence on China and gives ASUS more flexibility if U.S. trade policy changes, but it does not make tariffs, higher costs, or China-origin components disappear.
What ASUS actually moved
The widely reported “90%” figure does not mean that 90% of all ASUS manufacturing left China. It refers to the relevant PC and motherboard production serving the U.S. supply chain, based on management comments reported after the company’s Q2 2025 investor conference.
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- All ASUS laptops, desktops, and gaming products worldwide.
- Networking and communications equipment.
- Servers and enterprise hardware.
- Components or upstream suppliers.
- Production destined for markets outside the United States.
ASUS has discussed broader production-base expansion and separate plans involving server manufacturing in the United States. Those initiatives should not be treated as proof that the PC and motherboard shift is U.S. reshoring.
ASUS’s investor-relations materials are available through its investor event archive. Independent reporting from Supply Chain Dive and PCWorld provides additional context.
Where production is going
| Location | Role in the reported strategy | Important qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Thailand | One of the principal destinations for reallocated U.S.-bound production. | It is not automatically tariff-free; origin, classification, capacity, and local costs still matter. |
| Vietnam | A major Southeast Asian manufacturing base included in ASUS’s production diversification. | Products must still satisfy applicable customs and rules-of-origin requirements. |
| Indonesia | Another named destination for the new production allocation. | Infrastructure, suppliers, labor, and export logistics differ from those in China. |
These countries are not interchangeable tariff shelters. Their advantages depend on the specific product, bill of materials, manufacturing partner, shipping route, workforce, and U.S. customs treatment. ASUS also works with electronics-manufacturing-service partners, so the announcement does not by itself prove that all new facilities are wholly owned by ASUS.
Why relocate when some products were exempt?
ASUS executives indicated that much of the company’s portfolio was covered by the U.S.–China tariff-exemption framework during the 2025 earnings discussion. That does not make production diversification unnecessary.
Tariff exposure can change because an exemption may be:
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- Limited to particular products or tariff classifications.
- Restricted to a specific country pair.
- Temporary or politically revisable.
- Vulnerable to new sectoral measures, including possible semiconductor-related action.
- Insufficient to offset steel, aluminum, freight, labor, currency, and compliance costs.
ASUS was therefore managing policy uncertainty, not claiming that every product was already subject to a confirmed tariff. A broader manufacturing footprint gives the company options if future U.S. measures make China-origin production more expensive.
ASUS’s Co-CEO S.Y. Hsu described product innovation, market diversification, and supply-chain flexibility as parts of the company’s response in an ASUS interview.
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This is diversification, not U.S. reshoring
Several supply-chain terms describe different strategies:
- Reshoring: bringing production back to the company’s home country or the target market.
- Nearshoring: moving production closer to the target market.
- Friend-shoring: using jurisdictions viewed as less exposed to a particular geopolitical relationship.
- China-plus-one: retaining some China capacity while adding production in another country.
- Country-of-origin engineering: arranging production so that goods may qualify for different customs treatment under applicable rules.
ASUS’s reported move primarily fits the China-plus-one and Southeast Asian diversification models. It reduces concentration risk without proving that ASUS has abandoned Chinese suppliers or transferred its entire manufacturing network.
The full cost of tariff mitigation
A tariff is only one part of the landed-cost calculation. Moving production can reduce a China-specific duty while adding several other costs:
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- Customs duties: the duty applied to the imported finished product, based on classification and origin.
- Input duties: exposure to steel, aluminum, components, or subassemblies.
- Factory reconfiguration: new lines, tooling, testing equipment, and process documentation.
- Supplier qualification: validating new component suppliers and manufacturing partners.
- Duplicate capacity: maintaining equipment, inventory, and quality systems in more than one country.
- Ramp-up inefficiency: new plants may initially have lower utilization or higher labor and overhead costs.
- Logistics: new freight lanes, insurance, warehousing, and customs-brokerage expenses.
- Inventory buffers: extra stock may be needed while production transitions between sites.
- Compliance: bills of materials, manufacturing records, and origin documentation must be accurate and auditable.
- Currency: exchange-rate changes can offset some gains from moving production.
ASUS said tariff-mitigation capital investment reduced operating margin by approximately 0.5 percentage points in the quarter ended June 30, 2025. That is a company-reported quarterly impact, not a permanent annual forecast or a complete measure of customs duties. It may include transition and capacity costs. ASUS also cited foreign-exchange pressure, including the effect of a stronger Taiwan dollar, as a product-margin headwind.
The figure should therefore not be extrapolated mechanically to future quarters. Results will depend on factory utilization, tariff policy, pricing, product mix, exchange rates, and how much cost is absorbed by ASUS or its partners.
Who ultimately pays?
ASUS’s likely response is a shared-burden model rather than a single cost transfer. The company can combine:
- Absorbing part of the increase in its own margin.
- Negotiating lower prices or revised terms with suppliers.
- Asking distributors and retailers to share the impact.
- Reducing promotional support instead of immediately raising list prices.
- Changing configurations, bundles, or component choices.
- Raising prices on selected products where demand and brand strength permit.
Pricing power varies by category. A highly competitive mainstream laptop may be difficult to reprice without losing volume. A premium gaming laptop, workstation, or enthusiast motherboard may offer more room to pass through higher costs, although those products can also contain more complex components and specialized supply chains.
Consumers should not interpret ASUS’s warnings as proof that every model will become more expensive. The effect may appear as a higher manufacturer’s suggested price, fewer discounts, smaller memory or storage configurations, more expensive bundles, or differences between older inventory and newly manufactured stock.
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Tom’s Hardware reported on ASUS’s expectation that some costs could reach customers, but that is not a blanket announcement of universal price increases.
Why assembly location does not settle the tariff question
A product assembled in Vietnam, Thailand, or Indonesia is not automatically free of China-related tariff exposure. Customs authorities may consider:
- Where the motherboard, chassis, display, battery, processor, and other major components originated.
- Whether the new country performed substantial transformation.
- Whether assembly was meaningful manufacturing or only minimal finishing work.
- The product’s tariff classification.
- Production records and bills of materials.
- Whether the arrangement could trigger anti-circumvention scrutiny.
Final-assembly geography and customs origin are related but separate questions. A product can be assembled outside China while retaining substantial China-origin content or failing to qualify for the desired treatment. Companies evaluating similar moves should consult the U.S. International Trade Commission HTS search and U.S. Customs and Border Protection rulings, while recognizing that preliminary research is not a substitute for professional customs advice or a binding ruling.
Taiwan and upstream supply remain important
ASUS is headquartered in Taiwan and remains connected to Taiwan’s technology and supplier ecosystem. Management has indicated that much of its semiconductor supply comes from TSMC, but chip sourcing does not determine the origin of a finished laptop, desktop, or motherboard.
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- Chinese printed circuit boards and subassemblies.
- Mechanical parts, connectors, power components, and packaging.
- Assembly and testing costs.
- Freight, currency, and customs compliance.
TSMC’s U.S. investment may influence future policy discussions, but it does not guarantee that ASUS products will receive a particular tariff treatment. Similarly, moving final assembly does not establish full supply-chain independence from China.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What consumers may notice
The practical effect for buyers is likely to vary by model and market. Possible outcomes include:
- Higher prices on selected ASUS laptops, desktops, gaming systems, or motherboards.
- Reduced discounts rather than an obvious MSRP increase.
- Different pricing for otherwise similar regional SKUs.
- Temporary shortages or longer lead times during a production transition.
- More models carrying Southeast Asian country-of-origin information.
- Price differences between older China-origin inventory and newer shipments.
Buyers should compare the complete model number, configuration, warranty terms, availability, and final selling price rather than assuming that a country label predicts the entire cost or quality of a product.
Strategic benefits and risks
Benefits
- Lower concentration in one manufacturing country.
- More flexibility when tariff schedules or exemptions change.
- Greater negotiating leverage with suppliers, distributors, and governments.
- More options for routing production according to destination-market economics.
- Potentially better continuity during China-linked trade disruptions.
Risks
- Higher capital expenditure and lower utilization during the ramp-up.
- Quality variation or slower engineering changes across sites.
- More complex supplier, inventory, and customs coordination.
- Labor shortages, wage inflation, or infrastructure constraints in Southeast Asia.
- Longer or less efficient component routes.
- Future U.S. tariffs or investigations involving the new production countries.
- Continued dependence on Chinese upstream suppliers.
- Political, regulatory, and labor risks in the receiving countries.
- Reputational risk if relocation is viewed as tariff circumvention.
The key trade-off is that diversification reduces single-country risk while increasing network complexity. A second or third production country is valuable only if it has genuine, scalable capacity and can take over when the primary site is disrupted.
How to judge whether the strategy is working
Investors and supply-chain professionals should track five questions:
- Tariff effectiveness: Does the new location materially reduce landed cost after logistics, compliance, and component expenses?
- Speed: Can ASUS switch production by product and destination without major shortages?
- Margin preservation: Are suppliers, distributors, and consumers sharing the cost, or is ASUS absorbing most of it?
- True redundancy: Can another site take over if one country is disrupted, or is the network merely a routing alternative?
- Quality and compliance: Are product consistency, warranty claims, origin records, and customs documentation remaining strong?
Public statements alone cannot answer all of these questions. A definitive assessment would require product-level customs data, bills of materials, factory utilization, supplier contracts, and current tariff rulings.
Timeline and evidence limits
- March 2025: ASUS management discussed tariff-related cost pressure, supply-chain flexibility, and possible price effects.
- June 30, 2025: The quarter in which ASUS reported an approximately 0.5-percentage-point operating-margin impact from tariff-mitigation capital investment.
- August 13, 2025: ASUS held its Q2 investor conference and publicly described the Southeast Asian production allocation.
- September 2025: Independent trade and technology publications reported the implications of the shift.
Tariff exemptions and country-specific trade rules are time-sensitive. Statements about the exemption framework describe the situation discussed in 2025 and should not be treated as a definitive description of U.S. tariff treatment in September 2026 without current customs verification.
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