By Akash Sriram
(Reuters) -Smartphone startup Unplugged said on Tuesday it will start assembling its privacy-focused “UP Phone” in Nevada this fall, marking a strategic pivot toward onshore production as the Trump administration pushes to expand domestic manufacturing.
The phones will be assembled in Nevada and the company aims to keep the device priced under $1,000, despite the high labor costs, CEO Joe Weil, a former Apple executive, told Reuters. The devices are currently made in Indonesia and priced at $989.
“The first step we are approaching is assembly and then phasing in component sourcing,” Weil said, adding Unplugged chose a refurbisher-turned-assembler after weighing options from traditional lean manufacturers to smartphone refurbishing firms.
He declined to disclose the number of devices Unplugged plans to assemble in Nevada, or the identity of its partner. The company did not share the names of its backers and the amount it had raised.
Analysts have said assembling smartphones in the U.S. is prohibitively expensive due to an Asia-centered supply chain and high domestic labor costs. But U.S. President Donald Trump has been pushing companies including Apple to manufacture more domestically by leaning on tariff threats and other measures.
Unplugged said it plans to avoid some of the high costs tied to U.S. assembling by building devices in smaller, steady batches instead of releasing a new model every year.
Its latest device, available for preorder and set to ship in late September, comes with a year of access to Unplugged’s software suite, including firewall-based tracker blocking, a VPN and encrypted photo storage, before switching to a $12.99-per-month plan.
The new version retains the same hardware as the previous device that went on sale in 2024 but adds a redesigned interface, firewall dashboard and upgraded camera software.
Trump Mobile, a cellular service and smartphone venture licensing the president’s brand, has said it is also looking to assemble its debut T1 handset in the U.S.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
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