iPhone 7 Chip Manufacturer Counts Cost of Earthquake Damage

[ArtOfWarfare]

That's funny because to me, in corporatespeak, saying it's "more" and not attaching a number or range to it might mean "significantly more" but they don't want people freaking out about it (which they will anyway, Apple's stock is going to take a big hit over this tomorrow).

It seems to me that they were originally saying under 1%, meaning they were confident it was under 1%, but they're no longer confident it is under 1%, so they're saying it may be a bit over 1%. I don't expect it to be, say, more than 5%, because at that point describing it as "more than 1%" sounds quite misleading.

 

[pat500000]

Being in the range of 1% seems insignificant to me... I'm not concerned if my iPhone takes 1% longer to arrive. 5% would be about a 1 day delay, which I'm pretty sure few people would complain about (especially if told in advance.)

As someone else said...it's probably over 1 percent.

 

[macs4nw]

Earthquakes have a thing for delaying iPhones.

I realize you're probably saying that in jest, but it's just that a lot of the manufacturing of the components that go into our tech goodies, takes place near the "Ring of Fire" where roughly 90% of the world's earthquakes occur, often also accompanied by tsunamis and massive flooding. Remember the massive flooding in Thailand which caused widespread HDD shortages in 2011-2012?

Those of us who don't live near there can count their blessings, and I for one will gladly suffer some occasional delays to my material indulgences as I watch untold human suffering on the news from the safety of my living room, when another disaster hits those unfortunate people.

 

[69650]

It's never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket with a sole supplier, especially as Apple is rapidly heading towards becoming a one product company heavily dependent on a few key suppliers. Its about time they figured out a way to automated more of the manufacturing process and bring some jobs back to the US.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

This is the risk of using one manufacturer. If something goes wrong to effect supply, cutting Samsung out will not seem like such a smart move.

I haven't looked in a long time but aren't most chip foundries in the same geographic area anyway making them all susceptible to a major event such as this?

 

[kdarling]

It's never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket with a sole supplier, especially as Apple is rapidly heading towards becoming a one product company heavily dependent on a few key suppliers.

Its about time they figured out a way to automated more of the manufacturing process and bring some jobs back to the US.

I haven't looked in a long time but aren't most chip foundries in the same geographic area anyway making them all susceptible to a major event such as this?

All these factors... multiple suppliers, geographic stability/diversity, and US factory... were taken care of when Apple was using Samsung, who had built an extra multi-billion dollar foundry in San Antonio Texas a half decade ago to supply Apple's ARM chips.

Those chips normally account for about 10% of an iPhone's bill of materials.

Moving completely to a Taiwan supplier, while closer to Foxconn China and probably cheaper, is a negative for both Samsung and Texas. And not very smart for Apple apparently, either. It smacks of a bean counter decision, with cost being the most important factor.

 

[Lennholm]

So Apple's first step towards getting rid of Samsung as an essential supplier backfires immediately, interesting.

They said it was going to impact them by less than 1%. Later, they said it might be over 1%.

Might be over 1% suggests to me it's probably not a lot more than 1%.

Or, it's just carefully worded to smooth over the more serious reality, like how all Apple Support articles regarding widespread hardware issues begin with "We've discovered that a very small number of units are experiencing issues with..."

 

[gpat]

Let me guess, Samsung created the earthquake so they could get in on part of the deal now?

Not really, they just copied the earthquake from someone else.

 

[unplugme71]

Not really, they just copied the earthquake from someone else.

haha, nice!