“Samsung Electronics posted one of its worst performances in the fourth quarter,” Kim Jaewon reports for Nikkei Asian Review.
“The South Korean tech giant announced on Tuesday that its operating profit tumbled 28.7% on the year to 10.8 trillion won ($9.66 billion) for the October-December period, in preliminary earnings guidance,” Kim reports. “Revenue dropped 10.6% to 59 trillion won during the same period. The final data will be unveiled later this month.”
“Analysts attributed the weaker results to low global demand for server DRAMs as well as slowdowns in emerging markets,” Kim reports. “Industry watchers say the worst may be still to come. Nomura said DRAM and NAND prices will decline 31% and 44% respectively this year, lowering Samsung’s operating profit in the memory sector by 45% to 24.2 trillion won.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, that’s too bad.
“Nomura said DRAM and NAND prices will decline 31% and 44% respectively this year”
But don’t expect to see any of those savings when configuring a Mac’s RAM through the Apple store.
Of course not, Apple pre-paid for DRAM and NAND in order to ensure supply. It doesn’t buy on the spot market.
Sammy is always trying to out do Apple.
The unfortunate reality is that ever since Pipeline has run Apple, Samsung has frequently been the better hardware innovator in ways that unbiased buyers can appreciate. If you disagree, then take some time to tear apart Apple products. Every one relies on Samsung components. It’s not clear that Apple has the expertise to build anything from scratch, and obviously Timmy doesn’t understand what a strategic mistake that is.
What about Apple’s exciting A chips? Well first Apple outsourced production of them to Samsung, so the IP was handed to them on a silver platter. Then when Sammy mobile phones suddenly matched iPhones in key product performance, then eventually Apple hired TSMC to build its chips. That is Taiwan, Republic of China. How long do you think it will be before a Taiwanese mobile phone stands toe to toe against Apple’s conservative designs?
Cook has presided over the greatest losses of strategic advantages Apple has ever seen. Today Apple is completely incapable of making anything that is cost effective. Apple has gone high end because it’s too inept to compete at modest price points. Once Apple gave users a better value — not cheaper, just clearly better. Those days are gone as Cook has promoted fashion over substance. What is funny is how ugly the newest iPhones are compared to oher manufacturers models, even from “dead” makers like Nokia. If you haven’t held and used a new competitor phone, then do so. They have innovated mightily while Ive was polishing his car collection and printing gold edged scrapbooks.
The luxury cachet for what in the end are Chinese assembled piles of Asian parts that no longer outperform the competition, has worn quite thin. People might pay more for a superior product with unique abilities produced locally and offered with an honest long term value proposition. People would pay a premium if Apple actually guaranteed privacy and security rather than merely claiming to do so. The number of data mining apps in the iOS store is almost as bad as Android, and all apps from both platforms come from the same developers. The app advantage was gone 2+ years ago and the OSes haven’t offered any significant efficiency gains in 3+ years. People get sick of paying top dollar for emoji gimmicks and sealed fragile hardware that has no special functions or features, cannot be repaired, and doesn’t feel or look superior in any way to the other brands.
Apple could turn it around, but under such weak leadership, it won’t. The one advantage Apple has is a cash pile. Cook doesn’t know what to do with it.
you are wrong on most things… may be a few rights…
iPhone is still the most beautiful phone with notch. Just look at designs from Sammy and google… and its easy to see.
iPhones with FaceID, AirPods+Watch are still the most innovative products on earth… if you disagree then you better wake up from fake sleep.
Cost wise, yes they are expensive… they should remove a lot of waste like how Jobs use to do.