Samsung Declines to Seek iPhone 4S Ban in Korea, Wins Source Code Access

[Gravity]

Samsungs is worth about 3 times that of Apple in total assets.

Where are you getting that idea from? Apple has over $70 Billion in liquid cash, plus its assets... and it's largely considered the world's most valuable technology company. They COULD buy Samsung...

 

[Mad-B-One]

Do you realize how large Samsung is? More like Samsung can buy Apple to relieve themselves of the headache.

Well, they might be big but their operating income is only about 10% compared to Apple's about 33%. By share value, Apple is even bigger, meaning with their US$ 21.2 billion (FY 2010) in net income of Samsung would be hard to get over $300 billion to buy Apple Inc.

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Where are you getting that idea from? Apple has over $70 Billion in liquid cash, plus its assets... and it's largely considered the world's most valuable technology company. They COULD buy Samsung...

Beg the differ. Check Wikipedia. Also, some of their cash is a reserve for pending law suits etc. You don't gamble all your assets for a company with an incompatible portfolio. Could you imagine a construction machine produced by Apple or an airplane? That is far from their strategy but that is what it would mean to buy Samsung.

Edit: I forgot the oil platforms Samsung produces... that would be funny - an oil platform redesigned by Apple: Completely brushed aluminum and just one button to turn it on.

 

[imageWIS]

Where are you getting that idea from? Apple has over $70 Billion in liquid cash, plus its assets... and it's largely considered the world's most valuable technology company. They COULD buy Samsung...

Faceplam. Market value does not equal assets. The break up value of Samsung is about 3 times larger than that of Apple. Also, Samsung is really diversified: if Apple had one misstep it would be a massive issue for them, since Apple relies on having the next 'hot' product, whereas if one of Samsung's next electronic products didn't do well, they would not be greatly affected.

 

[antbikerjl]

Oh how I love people speculating about how Apple could buy Samsung, or the reverse. As I have said in many other posts, Market Cap in all reality means NOTHING in terms of actual company worth of acquisition. As I've also said in previous posts, Samsung by Asian law does NOT need to disclose their true revenue, income, or profits to the public. One would call it a "hidden revenue" or "hidden books..."

In terms of assets and etc, Samsung holds more assets that almost any company in the world. Apple could not, and will never be able to afford to buy Samsung outright unless it were to hold onto every ounce of profit for several years. Even then, it would be a stretch! If anything, Samsung could leverage their assets and purchase Apple, but that would put them in a terrible financial bind and would not happen to an American based company. Korea will back its own, as the US will back its own kinda-thing.

People need to get off the Market Cap. bandwagon as soon as possible, as it is swayed by market speculation and public view, not true value in terms of assets available.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Where are you getting that idea from? Apple has over $70 Billion in liquid cash, plus its assets... and it's largely considered the world's most valuable technology company. They COULD buy Samsung...

you are confusing paper value with assets. Apple has a very high paper value.

Apple is worth a lot on paper but in terms of Assets they do not have nearly as much. I am willing to bet MS owns more in physical assets than Apple.

 

[samcraig]

According to the report, the decision appears to have been spurred by public relations considerations, with Samsung preferring not to irk South Korean customers by attempting to have iPhone sales banned there.

That right there says it all.

Indeed. It says that at the very least, Samsung is at least consumer-aware of what such legal proceedings could do. I'm not so sure Apple would care. In fact - I'm pretty sure Apple wouldn't care.

 

[BC2009]

LOL.

Why don't you compare % of total exchange OR correct your values to reflect US GDP vs. K GDP (or PPP or whatever metric you want).

Kind of a shortsighted analysis on your part, eh?

LOL.... As far as I can see I'm the only one providing any sort of numbers to try to analyze these stupid claims going back and forth, so I think accusing me of being shortsighted for attempting to do a little analysis is pretty weak. My take was that neither company could buy the other. Please enlighten us with your analysis if you have a superior perspective on this.

I've been very up-front about my basic calculation. If you take Samsung's Market Cap and do a basic conversion of South Korean Won to US Dollars (1125 Won per 1 US Dollar -- google it) you get a valuation around $130B, which is right around the valuation of Intel right now. Clearly, Samsung is not worth three times Apple, though they may employ more people. I would assume Samsung's market cap would be higher than their book value, so arguing that the liquidation value of their assets exceeds that of Apple is absurd.

nah Apple buying Samsung is more ridiculous, Samsung in 2010 had about double the equity and almost three times the assets (not to mention the strain it would give Apple to employ 5 times more employees)

First off, are you ignoring financial assets? You must be, or else you would be 100% wrong on assets. Second, if Samsung has a large number of assets in property, factories, etc... Then it would be reflected in their "book value" (i.e.: the liquidation value of their assets), and hence their market cap would reflect that (unless you believe that they are trading at a small fraction of their book value -- which I doubt since the share holders would demand a liquidation of assets and a cash payout if that were the case).

It is quite possible that Samsung employs more people than Apple since they handle their own manufacturing, but employees don't count against your assets, they get counted as an expense in accounting. I'm not saying Apple should buy Samsung, but these claims that either company could buy the other are stupid. Even more absurd is the claim that Samsung is worth more than Apple. They simply are not.

 

[divinox]

It's more then enough time to copy everything .

Just to point out how stupid remarks like this are:

Apple is paying Samsung money (albeit indirectly) to access their expertise in 3g technology. If there was anything for Samsung to steal (i.e., if Apple were superior to Samsung in this department), Apple would not have to buy technology from Samsung in the first place.

 

[BC2009]

Oh how I love people speculating about how Apple could buy Samsung, or the reverse. As I have said in many other posts, Market Cap in all reality means NOTHING in terms of actual company worth of acquisition. As I've also said in previous posts, Samsung by Asian law does NOT need to disclose their true revenue, income, or profits to the public. One would call it a "hidden revenue" or "hidden books..."

In terms of assets and etc, Samsung holds more assets that almost any company in the world. Apple could not, and will never be able to afford to buy Samsung outright unless it were to hold onto every ounce of profit for several years. Even then, it would be a stretch! If anything, Samsung could leverage their assets and purchase Apple, but that would put them in a terrible financial bind and would not happen to an American based company. Korea will back its own, as the US will back its own kinda-thing.

People need to get off the Market Cap. bandwagon as soon as possible, as it is swayed by market speculation and public view, not true value in terms of assets available.

However, market cap is typically a good gauge of what the "book value" of a company is. The "book value" should certainly be lower than the market cap because if the market cap falls to far below "book value" then the share holders want a liquidation of assets in order to recover their investment. I doubt Samsung has 3 times its market cap in "hidden assets". Just because you have said it many times does not make it true (your reference to "Asian Law" is especially obscure since there is no "Asian Union" like their is in Europe). I doubt Samsung could buy Intel, let alone Apple with their assets. Further, Apple could never buy Samsung (nor would they) because they lack the financial reserve to make such a purchase.

Folks who are claiming that Samsung is really much much bigger than people think is ridiculous -- as are the beliefs that either of these companies could acquire the other. The most that could happen here is the two companies could decide to merge if they felt it made sense for them -- but clearly there is no sense to that either.

The problem I have with your statement is that it seems to indicate that even if some company had $400B in cash-on-hand and decided to spend $130B of that cash to acquire ALL of Samsung's stock, then that entity would not actually own all of Samsung because of these "hidden assets" or "hidden books". And if that entity could actually acquire full-ownership Samsung for that amount, they would have an immediate increase on their investment because Samsung's assets are actually worth more than the market cap. Seems to me that the best investment anybody could make is to buy Samsung stock and liquidate the company if that were true.

 

[Tiger8]

Apple is letting them see the relevant source code (ie. not all of iOS) for a very good reason: Apple doesn't believe they are infringing Samsung's 3G patents.

Apple is claiming "exhaustion" - in other words, because the 3G functionality is mostly provided by the Qualcomm chips they buy (and Qualcomm is a Samsung licensee) - then they aren't guilty of infringement.

What the source code will show is how Apple implements 3G: If the source code says something like "pass this task off to the processor located at address XYZ, and return the result to address ABC" - then Apple hasn't copied Samsung's IP.

On the other hand, if the iOS source code itself contains instructions as to how to handle the data, using methods that Samsung has patented - then Apple would be guilty of infringement.

That is what Samsung's engineers are going to be looking for. And while two hours isn't a lot of time to analyze source code, it should be enough for Samsung's engineers to decide if Apple's version is basically true, or not.

Totally agree. You must have an IT background, cause yes, two hours are not enough, UNLESS you are looking for **specific** methods and functions within the code. I consult in a -totaly unrelated- packaged software, and there are methods that you simply cannot use (unless you buy additional add-on licenses)

 

[simpleankit]

[

QUOTE=BC2009;13850087]I don't believe that is true. Apple is trading places with Exxon Mobile for the highest market capitalization. RIM recently traded below "book value", meaning their market capitalization was actually less than their total assets. For Samsung to be worth three times Apple in assets would mean that Samsung is trading far far below book value.

Right now, Apple's market cap is about $350B. Hard to gauge Samsung since doing the math on their stock and converting from the South Korean Won does not add up -- I know in Sep 2009 they were approaching Intel's market cap without about $91B in valuation.

Please provide some citation for your "3 times the value claim".

Just to state some facts:-

1, Market Cap is not correct way to compare companies and share prices are fickle. It is quite common that a company make a 10% growth year to year , and still its marke cap is half of previous year. (because investor had expected 30% growth!). Market Cap is dependent on share price and that again depends on investors expectation of a company's future growth. Still it is true that Market cap of Samsung Electronics as of now is two to three times lower than Apple inc. But in terms of Assets, Samsung and Apple are even.

2, Samsung Electronics Assets in 2010 (their 2011 data is still not out) was 118 billion dollar and Apple's Assets in year 2011 is 116 billion dollars. In other words Apple is trading at 3 times their Asset value while Samsung is not trading even at 1.5 times. Again it means investors value Apple at higher valuations than samsung

3, Revenue of Samsung Electronics was 133 billon dollar in 2010, Apple's reveue in 2011 is about 108 billion dollar.

4, Samsung Electronics profit is about half of Apple's. This is the main reason why Apple is valued higher

5, The guy who was referring to Samsung being three times than of Apple was referring to Samsung Group, of which Samsung Electronics is one of the subsidiaries.

6, Samsung group's market capitalization is unknown since not all compnaies are listed.

7, Samsung group accounts for more than 20% of South Korea's GDP.(In contrast Apple accounts for less than 1% of US GDP)

8, In fact, no one even knows Samsung Group's real revenue, As per wikipedia , Samsung group turnover in year 2010 (without including the revenues of its overseas subsidiaries) was 258 billion dollar.

 

[DesmoPilot]

Pretty sure they want to pick through all the code to try to find some sign that apple violated some of their patents (Which they most likely did), since key patents on 3G technology belong to Samsung, together with dual antenna technology. Every single new phone uses that technology, so it won't be difficult for Samsung to prove that Apple infringed something. So sick of this patent trolling.

 

[MartiNZ]

It's more then enough time to copy everything .

Just to point out how funny comments like this are. At least maybe this time they'll be able to do a better copy job. Bet MS wishes it had had Mac OS source code back in the day .

When did smileys stop declaring a post as non-serious?

 

[Oletros]

And regarding the two hour source code show, I think that is the clarification Samsung asked for because Apple gave them before 220 pages of source code.

Source Code

In the Australian suit, Samsung also sought the source code for the iPhone 4S firmware to support its case that Apple infringes its patents for wireless transmissions. Apple has turned over 220 pages of documents relating to the source code, Fox said.

Samsung said the source-code disclosure wasn’t enough because a file was missing. The company sought an order for Apple to produce the documents.

“Someone out there is attempting to obfuscate,” Samsung’s lawyer Cynthia Cochrane told the judge.

Bennett deferred judgment on Samsung’s request for the additional source-code material and said she would deal with it on Nov. 11, if the two sides can’t reach an agreement in the meantime.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...tralian-contracts-to-samsung-judge-rules.html

 

[Hurda]

When you lose homefield-advantage, you lost big.

 

[vvswarup]

you are confusing paper value with assets. Apple has a very high paper value.

Apple is worth a lot on paper but in terms of Assets they do not have nearly as much. I am willing to bet MS owns more in physical assets than Apple.

Are you trying to tell me that $81 billion in cash is "paper value?"

 

[vito]

According to the report, the decision appears to have been spurred by public relations considerations, with Samsung preferring not to irk South Korean customers by attempting to have iPhone sales banned there.

That right there says it all.

Yep, and especially in Samsung's back yard too, they're treading carefully as if they're not confident it will work out in their favour.

I suspect iOS is most likely doing well over there or at least noticeably that Samsung doesn't want to be seen as the bully but more so they're not going to win an injection so why bother applying, looks bad turning up empty handed.

 

[kockgunner]

Samsung still isn't going to win.

To obvious!

Don't forget this. Seriously, it looks even more like an iPhone in person than in pictures. I saw someone on the bus using it and no matter how much I looked at it, I still thought it was an iPhone until I saw touchwiz and the Samsung logo.

Indeed. It says that at the very least, Samsung is at least consumer-aware of what such legal proceedings could do. I'm not so sure Apple would care. In fact - I'm pretty sure Apple wouldn't care.

You could also say that Samsung is doing it for the money and Apple is doing it despite of what is popular because they believe their IP is being stolen. At any rate, it seem like Samsung was bluffing when they said they were going to block 4S imports to South Korea.

 

[Oletros]

Are you trying to tell me that $81 billion in cash is "paper value?"

Mmmm, no?

 

[Tommigun]

Guys, please don't post when you have no idea what you're talking about. This is getting a bit ridiculous.

First, the "source code" is not for iOS (and even if it was it wouldn't be anything special - Samsung is not interested in finding out how Apple coded this or that). No, the source code is FIRMWARE! Samsung's engineers look through it to see how the interfacing with the hardware was done. It is very dull code that you can't really be creative with, so the only thing Samsung wants to know is if any patents are being broken there. THERE IS NOTHING TO "COPY" IN THE CODE!

Second, are you serious about removing comments and obfuscating? Why don't you suggest Apple should also encrypt it, and hide the CD somewhere in the building? The entire point of giving access to the source code is SO THAT SAMSUNG CAN INVESTIGATE IT! Manipulating it in any way would be hindering justice and would default the case in Samsung's favor.

Geez guys. So many opinions here, so little facts. If you honestly don't know what's going on, please don't post an opinion piece on it. It's very frustrating to read.

 

[cirus]

Might be different this time.

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/11/iphone-4s-launches-to-long-lines-in-hong-kong-and-south-korea/

Yes, so they can sell it to the Chinese.....

Its generally better form when quoting sources to quote outside the website. Bad form to quote your own website when trying to make a point.

 

[adder7712]

Guys, please don't post when you have no idea what you're talking about. This is getting a bit ridiculous.

First, the "source code" is not for iOS (and even if it was it wouldn't be anything special - Samsung is not interested in finding out how Apple coded this or that). No, the source code is FIRMWARE! Samsung's engineers look through it to see how the interfacing with the hardware was done. It is very dull code that you can't really be creative with, so the only thing Samsung wants to know is if any patents are being broken there. THERE IS NOTHING TO "COPY" IN THE CODE!

Second, are you serious about removing comments and obfuscating? Why don't you suggest Apple should also encrypt it, and hide the CD somewhere in the building? The entire point of giving access to the source code is SO THAT SAMSUNG CAN INVESTIGATE IT! Manipulating it in any way would be hindering justice and would default the case in Samsung's favor.

Geez guys. So many opinions here, so little facts. If you honestly don't know what's going on, please don't post an opinion piece on it. It's very frustrating to read.

Opinions with a fanboyish tinge are laden here.

I could also argue Nokia ripped Apple off with their menu interface. (ZOMG icons on a grid)

No, I'm not serious.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Are you trying to tell me that $81 billion in cash is "paper value?"

ummm no. 81 billion is assets.

paper value is the near 400 billion the company is value. Noticed a differences.

Apple is very valuable on paper but Apple that is it. They have 80 billion in cash. I would say of that 80 billion 20 billion is really would be owed taxes as they will not bring it home.

 

[Tommigun]

Opinions with a fanboyish tinge are laden here.

I could also argue Nokia ripped Apple off with their menu interface. (ZOMG icons on a grid)

No, I'm not serious.

I can take fanboyism, but I think people should even know what is being discussed

Btw, I love the N90. Saw one in a store last week and it looks so slick, wouldn't mind owning one at all.

 

[gnasher729]

you are confusing paper value with assets. Apple has a very high paper value.

Apple is worth a lot on paper but in terms of Assets they do not have nearly as much. I am willing to bet MS owns more in physical assets than Apple.

About ten years ago, in the middle of the great internet stock bubble, I had a look for the most overvalued stock around. I found a company with a market caps of >$100,000,000 that actually had fewer physical assets than I had inside my home (physical assets were listed as $18,000). It was a software company with one CEO, 18 managers and VPs, and TWO software developers and they were looking for a third one. I also had more revenue than they had - theirs was ZERO and stayed that way for another five years.