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Is the Naim Uniti range designed and built in China?

RingeRaja said:
You may like it or not, but that's the fact...China will be biggest economy in the World in about few years.
Sooner or later, one by one, Western companies will move, piece by piece, to the East, because we live in time of liberal capitalism, where the money is supreme value.
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It’s not just about moving everything to China. The Chinese are actively encouraged to set up businesses in other countries as well as acquiring and investing in Western businesses. A Chinese buyout of Naim might even be a good thing if it frees them from the gross incompetence shown by Vervent in recent years.
 
Whatsisnaim said:
It’s not just about moving everything to China. The Chinese are actively encouraged to set up businesses in other countries as well as acquiring and investing in Western businesses. A Chinese buyout of Naim might even be a good thing if it frees them from the gross incompetence shown by Vervent in recent years.
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Its all about cost-down, buttomline & profit since Vervent took over

A possible Chinese buyout will not change this
On the contrary, further outsourcing might result in a Salisbury museum left.
 
PerF said:
Its all about cost-down, buttomline & profit since Vervent took over

A possible Chinese buyout will not change this
On the contrary, further outsourcing might result in a Salisbury museum left.
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There may be an element of cost-down in Vervent’s agenda, but then there is in many businesses. What I find more disturbing is the managerial incompetence they have shown. A Chinese buyout, or any other buyout, may make things better or worse, you can’t possibly make judgements on that until you know exactly who has done it.
 
Naim is not mass market. I have no idea, but I guess they sell a few thousand units per year?
They made £1m profit on turnover of £28m last year. Cost of Sales £15.5m, admin & distribution £11m.
There is (IMHO) really no significant advantage in moving production for that sort of volume?

UK - £11m
Europe - £8.3m
RoW - £8.5m
 
robs said:
Naim is not mass market. I have no idea, but I guess they sell a few thousand units per year?
They made £1m profit on turnover of £28m last year. Cost of Sales £15.5m, admin & distribution £11m.
There is (IMHO) really no significant advantage in moving production for that sort of volume?

UK - £11m
Europe - £8.3m
RoW - £8.5m
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According to their website they manufactured around 17300 serials in 2017

Whether this is included the far east Muso range or not, I have no idea

Their annual number of serials looking back, seem quite consistent

I'm sure they work hard to provide mega-seller items with lowest possible manufacture cost
The most recent 555 streamer may be such one, indeed there's a thousand page thread praise on the soon to be defunct Naim forum

In generel I have been extremely happy with most of my Naim stuff through years (with few exceptions)
It matters to me they still support 25-35 years old amplifiers etc
 
Naim moved some amp manufacturing out to New Zealand in the dim distant past. Soon brought it all back to the UK though when quality wasn't up to scratch.

Bet Focal wouldn't do that if a move to France/China had the same result.
 
They briefly had local manufacture in NZ (only for the NZ market) during a period of import controls under the National (roughly like Conservative) government. Labour came in about 1985(ish), freed up the import regime, and local manufacture made no sense at all. I think some third party did the manufacturing under license - it was a long time ago.
 
Import tariffs can lead to complete units being imported, dismantled in a free trade zone and reassembled in country. This happens to some cars in Malaysia.
It causes incredible reliability problems and nothing quite fits right.
 
pjdowns said:
Trying to find the answer to a discussion I have been having with my Dad.

My understanding that the Naim Uniti range (Atom etc.) are designed and built in China, whereas the other Naim products are always designed in the UK. Is this the case or are they just built in China?
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I appreciate that this is now a few years old BUT as someone who has visited the Naim factory on many occasions I can tell you that since they were bought by Focal a lot has changed. Almost all of the products are now "bought in". With the exception to the Statement amplifier and a few of the other top end products, all of the rest is bought in, including the new "Classic Series". For those who may be tempted by the Solstice turntable, this does not come from China, it is made by Clearaudio, so I assume German made? but could be anywhere. I am not sure if these products still carry the "Made in England" tag but would be very surprised if they did.
 
Okehdownsouth said:
I am not sure if these products still carry the "Made in England" tag but would be very surprised if they did.
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I think you can buy in all the bits, or even mostly assembled products, and as long as some final assembly is done here you can call it made in the UK.
 
Okehdownsouth said:
I am not sure if these products still carry the "Made in England" tag but would be very surprised if they did.
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As far as I know, Naim have created a production line on a factory in Slovakia to complement Salisbury/UK

This factory is able to make their entire product range apart from 500 and Statement boxes (Mu-So's are entirely made in the Far East)

This probably makes sense since Slovakia is inside EU and won't be a Brexit obstacle for Naim's EU market share.
 
The chips were never made in the UK, and the copper, aluminium and iron are ( as someone mentioned months ago) probably from Australia. Not sure about the black paint…

What do we all understand ‘made in the UK’ to mean when applied to any hardware?
 
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