This is a pretty interesting article on Gizmodo that speculates about that and which country will move in to take its place once it happens.
Here’s a selected quote from the article:
“After all, the natural cycle in gadget production has been for a country to start out as a purveyor of discount knock-offs, then gradually reinvent itself as a premium supplier. We’re all probably too young to remember this, but “Made in Tokyo” was a sign of inferior quality circa 1950. And weren’t LG and Samsung considered cheaper alternatives to Japanese goods just a generation (or less) ago?
You can already see what might be the first stirrings of China’s maturation—the transformation of Lenovo into an IBM-buying global brand, for example, or the efforts of Japanese companies like Matsushita Electric to move high-end manufacturing operations to Shanghai. I’m not saying that the flood of cheap MP3 players from Shenzhen is gonna stop in the next twelve months, but maybe it’s time to start asking: when it comes to low-end gadgets, what’s the next China?”
It’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
Article here.