Google May Make High-End Pixel Phones in Vietnam as US Supply Chains Drift Further From China

Google is preparing to take a bigger step away from China in its smartphone supply chain this year, with the company set to start developing and manufacturing high-end Pixel phones in Vietnam “from scratch,” Nikkei Asia reported. The shift is significant because it’s not just about assembly volume. Google is expected to move the most sensitive early-stage work for new devices, a phase known as new product introduction (NPI), outside China.

According to the report, Google will begin running NPI for the Pixel, Pixel Pro and Pixel Fold in Vietnam, while the lower-end Pixel A series will continue to be developed in China for now. NPI is the stage where manufacturers develop, verify and fine-tune production processes so a new design can actually be built at scale, and it typically requires hundreds of engineers and heavy investment in testing and tooling equipment.

For years, even companies that diversified final assembly, including Google and Apple, kept NPI work in China because the country’s mature supplier ecosystem makes “from-scratch” launches less risky. That is now changing amid fresh supply-chain uncertainty tied to tariff policy shocks linked to the Donald Trump administration, which have rippled through electronics manufacturing since April last year, Nikkei Asia said.

The report also links Google’s Vietnam move to Apple’s India ambitions. Apple is considering “dual NPIs” in India and China as a safety measure, effectively duplicating engineering resources to reduce the risk of a failed ramp, after Nikkei Asia previously reported that Apple planned to bring iPhone NPIs to India.

Vietnam is not a blank slate for Google: Nikkei Asia noted that Google already mass-produces high-end smartphones in Vietnam and runs some verification processes there, making a deeper expansion feasible. The bigger constraint may be China’s continued impediments to exporting production equipment and relocating Chinese personnel, a friction point that has reportedly slowed both Apple’s India expansion and Google’s Vietnam capacity plans in the past.

If both Google and Apple can reliably execute NPIs outside China, it would mark a meaningful upgrade in non-China supply chain capability, reducing dependence on the world’s most entrenched electronics manufacturing base.

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