Should Apple buy SanDisk?

“Apple (AAPL) had quite a newsworthy week last week, reporting Q4 earnings and then holding a press conference in which they unveiled their newest laptop, an upgrade of the super-thin MacBook Air that uses flash memory in lieu of a traditional hard disk drive,” MagicDiligence writes for Seeking Alpha.

“On the company’s conference call, a common question came up: what is the company planning to do with its more than $51 billion in cash and investments?” MagicDiligence writes. “Here’s what CEO Steve Jobs said on the matter: ‘We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along that we’re in a unique position to take advantage of because of our strong cash position.'”

MagicDiligence writes, “The question this naturally begs is: what opportunities could Apple pursue that would be meaningful to the company? One company on the Magic Formula Investing screens came to mind: flash memory vendor SanDisk (SNDK).”

“The strategic advantages for Apple are two-fold. Apple’s ground-breaking designs in mobile phones, tablet computers, and now in notebook computers make flash memory the company’s single most important component,” MagicDiligence writes. “SanDisk’s product gross margins are generally in the 30-40% range, meaning that Apple could conceivably secure their most important component at a significantly lower cost than competitors. The company has already shown the strategy of entering new markets at aggressive prices to shut out competition. A lower cost structure for producing these evolving new computing form factors is a significant competitive advantage. The other reason is technology leadership. SanDisk is a flash pioneer and holds most of the important patents on the technology.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]

68 Comments

  1. As far as flash memory is concerned, Apple should let other companies research, develop and produce it while ripping each other to shreds trying to get a supply contract with Apple.

  2. As far as flash memory is concerned, Apple should let other companies research, develop and produce it while ripping each other to shreds trying to get a supply contract with Apple.

  3. It depends on what you want in your mp3 player. iPods are easy to use and are very cool, but they get scratched really easily so you’ll probably want to invest in an iPod case as well. However, the battery life for iPods in general is not as good as other brands…

    Leanspa

  4. It depends on what you want in your mp3 player. iPods are easy to use and are very cool, but they get scratched really easily so you’ll probably want to invest in an iPod case as well. However, the battery life for iPods in general is not as good as other brands…

    Leanspa

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