Palm looking to Chi Mei for Palm Pre assembly

How many mobile phones are actually manufactured in-house? Not many. In this world of globalized manufacturing and marketing, mobile phone “manufacturers” churn out handset designs to component integrators. These ODM’s (Original Device Manufacturer) or OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturer) take care of the dirty details like how to combine all the various parts into a working device. DigiTimes is reporting that one of Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s “go to” OEMs, China’s Chi Mei, has been tapped to put all the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre’s parts together.

The Palm Pre is expected to bring Palm back from the brink, so there’s a lot riding on Chi Mei’s ability to keep up with demand while maintaining a high degree of quality. Of course, we have no reason to believe Chi Mei won’t be able to keep pumping out high-quality hardware with the kind of volume that we imagine Palm will need to satisfy Pre-demand. If production handsets are just as, or more, solid than pre-production models, Palm’s going to do just fine with the Palm Pre.

[Via: DigiTimes]