“Industry observers expect that Apple’s move to a more widely used PC architecture will cause some shuffling among Taiwanese contract manufacturing firms, mostly because Apple will have more options available. According to Y. D. Gordon, manager of THT Business Research, Apple will purchase $5.4 billion worth of IT equipment from Taiwanese manufacturers in 2005 and an estimated $7 billion in 2006, making it the third-largest purchaser of OEM equipment from Taiwan, trailing only Dell and HP. The changes won’t be earth-shattering, but two companies—Asustek, Apple’s current notebook manufacturer, and Hon Hai, one of the fastest-growing CMs in Asia—may see their fortunes change the most dramatically,” Cameron Crotty writes for Electronic Business.
Crotty writes, “Instead of relying on Asustek as its main notebook manufacturer, Apple will now be able to contract three main notebook manufacturers and keep one on standby. ‘Every so often, Apple will dump whichever notebook manufacturer isn’t satisfying the company on pricing or flexibility and replace it with one of the others,’ says Gordon.
Crotty writes, “Apple’s switch to Intel processors marks the end of an era. But despite the extensive attention paid by the pundits and the mainstream press, the company this will most affect is Apple itself. For nearly everyone else in the electronics industry, it will be business as usual.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nothing is static. The impact of the loss or gain of Apple’s business would be better measured a few years from now than by looking at it as an unchanging value based on the past. What might seem “small” today, might be quite a bit larger in the future. If we were an OEM, we’d rather take on a company that’s growing at three times the PC industry’s rate than take on another one that’s not.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Analysts don’t see Apple’s Intel switch dimming ‘iPod Halo Effect’ – July 30, 2005
Apple’s pending Intel switch not hurting PowerPC-based Mac sales – July 25, 2005
Report: Apple to benefit from Intel chip switch; Mac sales on the rise – July 13, 2005
Apple Specialists expect new Intel-based Macs to bring more business users to Mac platform – July 12, 2005
RealMoney: Apple’s iPod Halo Effect ‘quite profound,’ Macs taking good market share from Wintel – June 27, 2005
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
Does anyone have any information about Apple including a dual layer SuperDrive in the current PowerBook models (like those now included in the iMac and PowerMacs in the near future?
All bets are on Apple!!!
mw. stock
Any guesses when we may see an update to the current line of powerbooks? Some rumours say in September. What do you think the updates will be? Price drops, faster g4 processor, etc. Thanks.
>’Every so often, Apple will dump whichever notebook manufacturer isn’t satisfying the company on pricing or flexibility and replace it with one of the others,’ says Gordon.>
Don’t you think quality needs to be mentioned also?
Greeaaat – so now Apple will have the ability to ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of cost! That also means the Taiwanese manufacturers looking to win that race will have even more incentive to cut corners on quality. Yipee!
Frankly, this will impact Apple’s bottom line (near term) more than it will the customer’s pocket. Prices just aren’t going to move that much. Nevertheless, and I hate to state the obvious, but if I really wanted a Dell wouldn’t I have just bought one and saved the pennies in the first place?
May I suggest that the impact on Intel may be greater than this article suggests. The dollar impact of working with Appple may be less than the cultural impact. Intel now has a best of breed customer, something Dell, HP, Gateway et al are not.
mw: opened as in — The move to Intel opened a new era in Mac hardware.