“The buzz around Apple’s much-hyped music phone has touched a local company that makes integrated circuits and chips,” Carolyn Y. Johnson reports for The Boston Globe.
“Apple’s new gadget, dubbed the iPhone, has been all rumor and secrecy to date. No one knows its specifications, its real name, or whether it will indeed be unveiled at Macworld 2007 in San Francisco next week,” Johnson reports.
“The anticipation, however, has cast a spotlight on Skyworks Solutions Inc., a Woburn semiconductor company that analysts say will manufacture a key component of the phone.
Skyworks is a major manufacturer of ‘front-end modules’ — devices few consumers have heard of, but which most carry in their pockets. Such a chip amplifies and filters voice and data signals, connecting the phone to the network and making it more than just a hand-held computer,” Johnson reports. “Two analysts said that Skyworks will make the $2 to $3 front-end modules for Apple. Skyworks officials declined to comment.”
“‘We became very confident that Skyworks has earned the front-end module for the new iPhone,’ said Cody Acree , managing director at Stifel Nicolaus, who rates the stock ‘buy.’ Skyworks makes 40 percent of the devices worldwide; RF Micro Devices of Greensboro, N.C., has a similar market share,” Johnson reports.
Johnson reports, “Edward Snyder, a principal analyst at Charter Equity Research, was skeptical of the benefits to Skyworks, though. ‘They’re definitely involved’ with Apple’s phone, he said, but it is ‘not a huge win for Skyworks because they’ve got much bigger projects’ with major handset makers that sell tens of millions more phones than Apple is likely to sell in its first year.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Scott” for the heads up.]
“Not a huge win… Much bigger projects…” Eddie Snyder’s not gonna know what hit him if Apple does it right (or they’re even just in the ballpark of “right”) and actually releases the mythical beast(s).
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a lot of people will be very unhappy if there is no ‘iphone’, including me lol, and i will blame all these rumor sites for getting my hopes up :p
We have all found different uses for a Shuffle, Nano and iPod video without cannibalising each other’s sales, but I would like to know how Apple is going to feature/market the phone (if it exists) without it cannibalising iPod sales i.e. so that I want an iPod AND an iChat Mobile.
Hey Holy Mackeral,
I wouldn’t worry about the iPhone cannibalizing iPod sales….
Remember, the know-nothing ANALysts predicted & propagated several ‘myths’ in the same context:
Myth #1 cell phone cameras will cannibalize digital camera sales (what a joke!)
Myth #2 Clocks on cell phones will cannibalize watch sales (I kid you not)
Myth #3 (in the making) – Music playing phones will cannibalize MP3 player sales
You can check any of these out by going back on reports that have appeared from just about ALL the major wireless industry consulting firms (you nkow who you are!), multiple banking ANALyst reports, Nokia press releases (boy that Ngage really decimated PSP & GameBoy sales), Wall Street Journal articles, Financial Times articles, etc, etc, etc….
I find it hard to believe w/ these guys batting average that they find anyone to either quote them and/or purchase & read their reports!
It’s a shame Skyworks is so poorly managed; the engineers there have been defecting to Broadcom and other local shops because the company has made a complete mess of things. People are not happy working there.
Actually, cellphone clocks have been part of a trend of declining watch sales, but only the low end utilitarian watches like timex and no-names. Luxury watches have been steady or increasing. I read a big report showing the sales numbers awhile back – the analysts were right about it, but on a smaller scale. It’s mostly people under 30.
And I’ve seen it in real life. I’m 23, most of my friends either have nice watches, Bulova, Movado, etc, or they don’t have a watch at all and (ta-da!) use their cellphones. Obviously, over the long term as my age group gets older, and more kids do the same thing, commodity watch sales will continue to drop, but so long as a good watch is a status symbol, those watchmakers will do fine.
/offtopic.
Myth #2 is a fact. Far from myth.
I feel like an outsider since I have a watch and I keep wanting a watch that has these features:
– Looks like Citizen BM6260-58L
– Black, white or matches-to-bracelet table
– Titanium (dark and not smooth)
– Screw-down crown
– Anti-scratch glass
– Eco drive
My current watch cost 60€ and it has screw-down crown and anti-scratch glass.
My opinion is, that most of the mens watches look big and bulky. I like watching monster trucks, but I don’t to own car that looks like one.
ha ha ha if you think movado and bulova are nice watches… ha ha ha oh that’s too much
Masa… try a large woman’s watch like the Seiko coutura series. Very nice watch, with saphire crystal face (unscratchable). Screw down top and very unique… with metal band, doesn’t look like a woman’s watch.