Samsung Said to Supply Memory Chips for Next-Generation iPhone

[Michaelgtrusa]

They are responsible for some of the worst trade deal in the last 15 years. The nation give into this. Tim Cook says "we can do more"

 

[Mildredop]

I'd love to know how these deals are really done. Over email? A few execs fly over to Samsung and get wined and dined? Dark board rooms? Closed bidding?

 

[BigBeast]

Screw the memory. I want Apple to employ Oppo's fast charge technology! From 4% battery to 74% in 30 minutes?!

Oppo's flash charge

 

[Jsameds]

I'd love to know how these deals are really done. Over email? A few execs fly over to Samsung and get wined and dined? Dark board rooms? Closed bidding?

I want to believe it's something like the office scenes from The Wolf of Wall Street

 

[gnasher729]

It's not a bad thing having Samsung memory in your iPhone, they make some of the best memory around.

The iPhone 6S will probably be around 90% Samsung components.

Says who?

The iPhones don't have more than 10% Samsung components on average, some more, some less. And Samsung is currently in deep trouble with their SSD drives having sudden performance drops. (Samsung 840 EVO, and their fix doesn't work most of the time).

Good to see that Apple is starting to catch up with Samsung in some respects.

Excuse me? What are you talking about?

 

[SirCheese]

Screw the memory. I want Apple to employ Oppo's fast charge technology! From 4% battery to 74% in 30 minutes?!

Oppo's flash charge

Like Motorola already does?

 

[2457282]

So what you're essentially saying is that Apple should buy Samsung's chip division.

I am not in the semiconductor business, but I will bet that there is a lot of time and risk involved in starting a chip line.

While I agree with you on the risk/reward perspective. Samsung is a great chip maker and a great foundry, probably the best and that is why Apple seems to always go back to them.

However, I think it is a legitimate concern that Samsung could and does use the profits from these LOBs (lines-of-business) to support their cell phone LOB which then competes directly with Apple.

At some point, either Samsung will give up competing with Apple because it is sucking too much of its profits or Apple will need to help another manufacture get up to speed and able to produce high quality chips at the lowest cost possible. Otherwise Apple is in a very real sense funding its own competition. That is not a good long term strategy.

 

[2IS]

It has begun... iPhone 6S rumors abound.

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Screw the memory. I want Apple to employ Oppo's fast charge technology! From 4% battery to 74% in 30 minutes?!

Oppo's flash charge

The 6 and 6 Plus have a similar feature. It's called, "use an iPad charger"

 

[spectrumfox]

I love these kinds of threads. Some people get so offended that Samsung supplies Apple with parts for their iPhone's.

 

[2IS]

I love these kinds of threads. Some people get so offended that Samsung supplies Apple with parts for their iPhone's.

Try to be a little understanding, this is a very traumatizing experience for them.

To some people, Apple is synonymous with God, and when they read that God is relying on lower life forms to produce the next Godly device, it shakes their core and they question their very existence.

I hope in the future you won't be so insensitive to others.

 

[Yumbo]

2GB please.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Did anyone post, Die Samsung die yet?

 

[Tycho24]

Good to see that Apple is starting to catch up with Samsung in some respects.

Lol....
How you got that Apple is "catching up" with Samsung from the fact that they are buying quality components from Samsung that their own mobile division is too cheap to purchase themselves, is beyond me!!!

 

[rdlink]

I don't get why Apple relies on others to keep them going when they got all this money sitting in the bank that they can use to build their own manufacturing plants. Talk about being a cheapskate.

You should perhaps bone up a little on the history of Apple. One of the great accomplishments of Tim Cook as COO of Apple was to get rid of expensive, unprofitable, and limiting Apple owned manufacturing facilities, and replace them with nimble, just in time agreements with specialized vendors who spend all of their time perfecting this stuff. That was just as big a part of Apple's return to profitability in the late 90's and early 00's as the Jobs renaissance.

Why would Apple want to go back to the bad old days, when their profit has never been higher?

 

[unplugme71]

I don't get why Apple relies on others to keep them going when they got all this money sitting in the bank that they can use to build their own manufacturing plants. Talk about being a cheapskate.

because Samsung does it very well and cheap

Sometimes getting into supplying your own parts is not cost effective. You have huge R&D costs, limited production (your own), and lots of overhead.

 

[69Mustang]

Spend billions on construction. Spend billions on equipment. Spend 10's of millions on personnel. Spend 100's of millions on raw material and actual production. Spend billions on R&D and retooling fab for next gen's production (rinse & repeat). This would be for one component such as memory chips. I think you'd need different equipment for each of those components in this imaginary fab. Might even need totally different fab. As far as I know, there is no one-stop-shop fab for all your components.

I'm sure I am missing a boatload of other expensive components of starting/running a fab. I have no experience or true knowledge in this area at all. Even with my lack of knowledge in this area, I can see there is no advantage to Apple starting a fab facility.

or

Cheaply source JIT components from fabricators that bear all those costs to receive relatively skinny margins. From the little I do know, fabs turn their small profit on volume.

The only silver lining I see in the cloud of Apple starting/acquiring a fab is some fanboys would get giggly over the prospect of Apple not relying on Samsung. Outside of those fanboys, nobody would benefit; especially Apple.

Long, drawn out, overwrought explaination.

You should perhaps bone up a little on the history of Apple. One of the great accomplishments of Tim Cook as COO of Apple was to get rid of expensive, unprofitable, and limiting Apple owned manufacturing facilities, and replace them with nimble, just in time agreements with specialized vendors who spend all of their time perfecting this stuff. That was just as big a part of Apple's return to profitability in the late 90's and early 00's as the Jobs renaissance.

Why would Apple want to go back to the bad old days, when their profit has never been higher?

More succinct explaination.

because Samsung does it very well and cheap

Sometimes getting into supplying your own parts is not cost effective. You have huge R&D costs, limited production (your own), and lots of overhead.

Straight to the damn point.

 

[the-msa]

Like Motorola already does?

thats irrelevant for now.

but it will be magical when apple introduces it in a year!

 

[Max(IT)]

Nothing strange about this agreement. Business is business, and Samsung sees Apple as a big customer.
Samsung electronics and Samsung mobile aren't the same.

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It's called acting responsibly with the money that Apple worked hard for.



There is risk, and there is reward. What would be the reward from building a memory chip factory when Apple can easily buy the chips, other than pleasing the fanboys?

Who cares about who manufacturers iPhone's RAM?

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Good to see that Apple is starting to catch up with Samsung in some respects.

What ?

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Did anyone post, Die Samsung die yet?

Actually..... you

 

[BSDanalyst]

I'd love to know how these deals are really done. Over email? A few execs fly over to Samsung and get wined and dined? Dark board rooms? Closed bidding?

In this case, Samsung is the seller, Apple being the buyer. Since Apple is shopping around to buy chips, I'd imagine Samsung sales team would be pitching to the Apple engineering and operations execs (highly doubt Tim Cook would be involved in this, but possible).

As for wining and dining aka T&E (travel and entertainment) while that's common and expected in other industries such as finance, I'd imagine it's less prevelant in the tech industry.

 

[Max(IT)]

I love these kinds of threads. Some people get so offended that Samsung supplies Apple with parts for their iPhone's.

Who got offended here ? The only one speaking in this terms is you.....

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Try to be a little understanding, this is a very traumatizing experience for them.

To some people, Apple is synonymous with God, and when they read that God is relying on lower life forms to produce the next Godly device, it shakes their core and they question their very existence.

I hope in the future you won't be so insensitive to others.

Do you feel somewhat "superior" ?

 

[dec.]

Did anyone post, Die Samsung die yet?

No, apparently everyone has flip-flopped and now says that Samsung is a "good chip maker".

 

[AppleScruff1]

No, apparently everyone has flip-flopped and now says that Samsung is a "good chip maker".

Wow! Now that's a surprise! I thought we wanted Samsung to go under?

 

[dec.]

Wow! Now that's a surprise! I thought we wanted Samsung to go under?

Why did you want that?!

 

[thekev]

I don't get why Apple relies on others to keep them going when they got all this money sitting in the bank that they can use to build their own manufacturing plants. Talk about being a cheapskate.

What makes you think it's a matter of cost? They have no expertise in these areas. The same held for other things such as chip design, yet they had something to gain by moving those things in house. Appeasing the lunatic fringe that wants everything to be made directly by an ODM contracted by Apple isn't really sensible.

 

[Tech198]

Do you reckon these 'fierce rivals' would battle to the death anytime soon ? I still reckon most of the contacts Samsung would have otherwise gladly helped Apple if they never did any court issues to begin with.

Not that they wouldn't do deals with Apple... It's just they would have done more deals if these sorts of issues never arose.