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Samsung Tries To Ban Import of iDevices To US
tekgoblin writes "The battle between Apple and Samsung has just heated up again. Samsung has filed a complaint to the International Trade Commission to ban import of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod products to the U.S. From the article: 'Samsung, the world’s second-largest maker of mobile phones whose Galaxy devices compete with the iPhone and iPad, claims Apple is infringing five patents, according to a filing with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington yesterday. The ITC, which can block imports of products found to violate U.S. patents, must decide if it will investigate Samsung’s claims.'"
If Samsung succeeds in obtaining this ban, then that's billions of dollars they lose in sales of flash memory to Apple. Who's in charge of that outfit?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I would love to see this go down. Could you imagine the US with their iToys? No more iphone 5 or ipad...it'd almost be...a miracle...
This is just getting retarded, it's like watching a bunch of school kids bully each other then go to the teachers.
In fact, *Nobody* can produce a smart phone without infringing on *Somebody's* patents.
You want IP reform? Take EVERY infringing product off the market. Let's see congress and the Executive branch do without their Blackberries and their iPhones. It is stupid to allow the thousands upon thousands of bogus patents to be used as a patent thicket to protect a few big companies. These are NOT inventions, in the sense viewed by the framers of the constitution. Most are little minor tweaks obvious to anyone working in the industry. But the costs to consumers in more expensive products and less competition and slowed innovation is huge and vast.
It is time we limit tech patents to 3 years. But regardless of the reform, reform is needed.
Samsung sells everything to everyone. I'm sure they'd happily take a small profit hit now in order to force Apple to pay them royalties on every device they have sold and will sell. It might not work out in their favor, but it's probably worth a shot.
Is this how we're going to get better devices in the future? Companies battling it out to see how many markets they can ban their competitors from and stealing ideas rather than actually innovating? Sometimes I feel like a catastrophic worldwide environmental disaster to wipe the slate clean is in order... sometimes.
Not so sure about that - don't Apple pre-pay for their flash memory, and won't it be on a contract where Samsung deliver X units every Y months ? Samsung don't care if Apple can't *use* the ram, the contract is just for supply.
Of course, Samsung will lose out on future contracts if they play this game, I'm sure Apple will (ahem) investigate Toshiba's flash-ram parts next time around, but perhaps Samsung think this is likely anyhow, so if they've already burnt their bridges, why not go for it ?
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
The patents in the ITC case are related to ways to transmit multiple services over a wireless network; the format of data packets used for high-speed data transmission; integrating Web browsing into a phone; a way to store and play digital audio; and viewing digital documents using a touch-sensitive display
I wonder how specific these patents are and how similar the Apple products are to them. Did they patent transmitting TCP/IP over wireless on a phone (something obvious), or do they have their own proprietary protocol (less obvious)?
I have a feeling there might be a lot of obscurity involved in this case.
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Apple has already shown they pretty much don't want to do business with Samsung in the future. Moving their chip fab and several other components to competitors.
-]Phreak Out[-
So I guess Samsung is schizophrenic now?
Apple struct first, Samsung retaliated, its a dumb move to sue the provider of your RAM for both laptops and iDevices..
Personally, if I had a customer as insanely and stupidly litigious as Apple, I wouldn't much care about losing them.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
It's not a small profit hit. Apple is far and away the biggest customer for flash memory that there is.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
They are going to have a hard time finding a judge or jury who isn't addicted to some Apple product methinks.
I guess the apple fanbois can forget about AMOLED then.
When patents were first introduced in the UK, their length was 14 years. That was based on apprenticeships lasting seven years, and two generations of apprentices learning how to build and operate a device. If it could be argued that it takes a software engineer six months to become proficient in a programing technique then software patents should only be one year. Look and feel patents, if it takes 12 weeks to master creating that look and feel, then the patent should only be six months. Something that takes a four year engineering degree to master, gets eight years. A doctorate, 16 years. This would reduce the load on the patent office, because it wouldn't be worth the effort to patent simple things.
It looks like Apple was already threatening to take their ball and go home anyways with regards to Samsung's memory chips: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-28/hardware/29712304_1_galaxy-products-ipad-samsung-electronics
It is very unlikely Apple pre-pays anything. It is very likely the contract has enough escape clauses that Apple does not need to take anything if the mood strikes them.
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Seriously, right off the bat when Apple sued Samsung the first thought that crossed my mind was "how is this going to work out", Samgung is simply going to counter sue the crap out of them. Then when it was noted that the iPhone contains Samsung parts, I just shook my head at the stupidity.
I'm sure the person at Apple that was getting pats on the back over this slick move is now picking the shoe parts out of their ass.
You know the extra delicious bit of irony with this new turn is that we have a Korean company suing an American company and filing for injunction to prevent the American company from shipping their products because they've outsource production overseas. HAhahaha. Globalization? How's that working out for you?
NAND and DRAM are commodities. Apple has other options. Very large customers are harder to come by.
Apple played their hand aggressively, but not necessarily "dumb".
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billions of dollars in CONTRACTS. which have some degree of exclusivity for the near future.
apple needs memory to make devices - not sell them.
suspending imports to the US is one thing, suspending manufacturing is another (and not at issue here)
iOS devices are selling in other parts of the world.
Lets see some data for such a claim.
If they really were such a big buyer they would be stuck with buying from samsung since they produce most of the flash.
Of course Samsung will not succeed in obtaining the ban; it's not the goal. Everyone knows that it's going to end up as a settlement and a cross-licensing agreement, they're just haggling over who pays and how much.
Pretty much all the big players are being sued by somebody. That graphic's a little old, but it still illustrates just how messed up the patent system must be.
Name some names, who else fabs this stuff and can at the drop of a hat come up with enough of it to replace all of Apples needs?
Commodity or not Samsung produces about 40% of the worlds supply of DRAM and NAND.
They're on very slippery terrain. Apple could go to another manufacturer for their iDevices cpus and flash nand. It's not like Samsung is the only company manufacturing Flash memory or ARM processors. Samsung stands to lose a pretty big customer in that case.
-iPod, check :)
-iPod Touch, check
-iPad, check
-iPhone, check
-AppleTV, check (I don't think they sell those that much though.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
A South Korean company blocking the import of Chinese made products of a US company on the basis of US patents. Amusing. Also, it's not going to happen. At least not this election cycle.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
I don't have any figures at hand, but I'm sure the USA is far and away Apple's largest market.
Let us all go without mobile phones until 2030 something when all current patents will be expired, then buy phones. That'll teach'em.
Filing a complaint at the US ITC is now part of the standard arsenal for software patent lawyers. Actual bans are very rare, a Qualcomm phone ban is the only one I remember, and the ITC has also said explicitly that bans are only possible at the request of product developers, not trolls.
That said, in terms of stock prices, market confidence etc. filing a complaint at the ITC is probably a win in itself in this legal system that encourages competitors to shoot each other rather than out-do each other.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/United_States_International_Trade_Commission
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Phone_patent_litigation
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One of the stated strategic advantages (by Tim Cook, the COO) of Apple's cash pile is to be able to pre-pay for strategic resources such as flash RAM, and therefore reserve enormous quantities at excellent prices. He (and Oppenheimer) have said this several times in Q&A section when they're reporting quarterly numbers.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Your typo is classless and causes your post to tupple over.
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Exactly!
Also with Android devices outselling Apple devices the claim would't be true even if it was limited
to the mobile platform arena. There are 500,000 activation of android devices every day, and most
of them contain some Samsung parts, with emphases on the flash ram.
What Samsung would lose in iPhone sales blocked in the US they would easily recover
from their own phones sold in the US, as well as HTC, LG, Motorola, and twenty other
brands all using Samsung memory.
I've seen this claim posted before, but when you check out the facts its either dated
information or simply applied to a specific type of flash memory of a specific size.
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Not, actually.
There's a lot more people *outside* the US than there are *inside* the US, and given how poorly the US economy is doing at the moment, the disparity in disposable income is less than it used to be as well.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Thank GOD that pice of shit will never be in an iPhone.
Apple just overtook Sony as Samsung's largest customer (before that Apple was #2).
And Apple's already investigating TSMC and Intel for foundry services (for their A5/A6 parts). And Intel/Toshiba would love to sell Apple tons of flash memory (Toshiba already does). Intel's probably already got the capacity to ramp up production for Apple, and can always grease the wheels with some money from Apple to build whole new fabs just for Apple.
Apple's such a huge player in the chip business, they can really distort the market if they wanted to. NAND flash prices will start to rise on the largest devices soon as Apple gears up production for the holiday season. And Samsung might be left with a bunch of underutilized fabs and production lines that were happily occupied selling Apple chips that everyone else can't make up for.
No, it won't kill Samsung, but it'll affect their bottom line hard enough with underutilized (expensive!) fabs and production lines plus loss of sales to put a dent in their financials. Plus nevermind the whole "you pissed off your #1 customer" thing that shareholders might not be very happy about.
Then again, Samsung is a huge conglomerate. Their mobile division is happy to piss off Apple - it means more sales for them. But their semiconductor division will not be so happy to lose such lucrative business and have to idle billion-dollar fabs.
Lets see some data for such a claim.
If they really were such a big buyer they would be stuck with buying from samsung since they produce most of the flash.
Apple is the worlds largest corporate semiconductor buyer. Feel free to google that one... or just look for the ./ article. It can be assumed that if Apple wasn't Samsung's largest semiconductor account, they're damn near. The loss of Apple's account will devastate Samsung's semiconductor business. As far as other vendors that can meet the demand, when Apple knocks, you build factories.
This is all a moot point since Apple is researching a new supplier for many of the Samsung-bought chips. They will loose the bulk of the account anyway. And it's probably not a douche move, but an IP security move. Who wants to buy their technology from a company that outright clones the devices they're helping to build?
Apple will be Samsung's biggest customer this year, buying up components for iPhones and iPads. The bottom line is that Apple buys a massive amount of components from Samsung in order to build the very products Samsung is trying to stop from coming into the US. This is Samsung's own profits that they are trying to stop.
You cant exactly count the rest of the world as a market in comparison to the US. I would have accepted other continents counting against the US, but the entire world has 59 percent to the US 41 percent.
That means that pretty much any way you slice the world into other markets the US is still the largest...
Spin that data fanboi.
I believe they sign contracts to lock in capacity, but I find it hard to believe any cash actually changes hand before the parts are delivered. To be correct, the sentence should read "One of the strategic advantages of Apple's cash pile is that manufacturers believe you can pay when the time comes to deliver the large portion of their capacity they ran for you".
I could very well be wrong, but pre-payment does not fit any Apple MO I have seen.
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Lets see some data for such a claim. If they really were such a big buyer they would be stuck with buying from samsung since they produce most of the flash.
Lets see some data for such a claim.
If you know that Samsung produces about 40% of the DRAM supply, certainly between the report you have and Google you can determine that Hynix supplies ~20%, Elpida ~16%, Micron ~11%, and so on. It shouldn't be too hard to use the same resources to determine that Toshiba and Micron/Intel are the other big players in NAND.
It is unlikely anything will be at the drop of a hat. Apple knows what they intend to do, and will already have alternate source contracts set up when they let Samsung know.
It also shouldn't be too hard to figure out that Apple changing vendors does not materially impact the supply of DRAM and NAND, but just shifts the buckets of who supplies who. There may be some short term price volatility on the spot market as large contracts reorganize, but it will not be a cataclysmic end of the universe for us all.
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Yes, there's far, far more people outside the USA than inside, but most of those people are dirt-poor, and live without electricity. There's a growing number of middle-class people who can afford iJunk, yes, but even so, read your own article. As of 2010, 44% of Apple's revenue comes from the USA. That's not exactly a small amount.
The US is still their biggest market compared to AsiaPac, Japan, EU, and "everything else".
You probably don't even know what AMOLED is.
If you really think that Apple didn't know they used Samsung parts, and they didn't expect counter-suits, then you really don't understand businesses in general and Apple especially.
Good I hope samsung wins.. I hope then that Apple an american company opens a factory in.... America..itsnot imported then
Lets see some data for such a claim.
If they really were such a big buyer they would be stuck with buying from samsung since they produce most of the flash.
Spurred by booming demand for the iPhone and iPad, Apple Inc. in 2010 became the largest buyer of semiconductors among original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for the rst time ever, new IHS iSuppli research indicates. http://www.isuppli.com/Semiconductor-Value-Chain/MarketWatch/Pages/Apple-Becomes-Worlds-Largest-OEM-Semiconductor-Buyer-in-2010.aspx
FTA: Apple’s surge to leadership in semiconductor spending in 2010 was driven by the overwhelming success of its wireless products, namely the iPhone and the iPad. These products consume enormous quantities of NAND flash memory, which is also found in the Apple iPod. Because of this, Apple in 2010 was the world’s No. 1 purchaser of NAND flash.
Without belabouring the point... I think that it is common knowledge in the semiconductor industry that Apple is buying up all the semiconductor factory capacity they can get their hands on - more than even HP, Dell, Samsung, Nokia, Sony, etc. Apple has created a global shortage of certain components (not always because Apple has bought up the supply for that component, but often because Apple has bought up the chip fab capacity for its own custom components) leaving smaller oems without the off-the-shelf components that they need for their products.
The chatter that I am getting in the industry is that Samsung will (not may) loose more by pissing Apple off than they could ever hope to gain because they don't own the Android market and can never hope to replace the revenue generated from Apple with Android phone/tablet sales. Toshiba and Sony are lobbying Apple to get more of their chip business as we speak.
Your original quote was that the Usa was "far and away Apple's largest market". If they don't even have a majority share of the market, it's difficult to see how they're "far and away" the largest, and in fact if the market is defined as 'the Usa vs the rest", the Usa comes out second-best. When I categorise something as "far and away" the leader, I expect it to have pretty much an absolute majority share of whatever is under discussion. That is not the case here.
Also, if you actually read the article, you can see the growth percentages
Given that the Usa has dropped its revenue share by 15% (59% dropping to 44%) over the 5 years measured and has a slower growth rate than anywhere else on record, I'd not feel comfortable categorising that market as "far and away" the largest market right now (ie: a year later than the figures report). Certainly it looks as though the Usa won't even be the largest market pretty soon, let alone "far and away" the largest market.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Getting into a patent war with Apple is a really bad idea. Apple's portfolio can no doubt put Samsung out of business. Payback is a bitch here.
Apple is the largest OEM Semiconductor buyer in the world.
http://www.isuppli.com/semiconductor-value-chain/news/pages/apple-becomes-worlds-largest-oem-semiconductor-buyer-in-2010.aspx
They are not a customer that is easily replaced.
Samsung knows they won't get this ban. That isn't their strategy. They just want a cut of the money. You must understand one thing to make any sense of civil corporate law: No one ever wants to go to court; they want a profitable settlement.
After all, if you were a Samsung executive, and you did not suffer from recent substantial brain damage, would you think that hordes of customers who've just been denied the chance to buy the iProduct they've been looking forward to buying are going to reward the company responsible for that?
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Aww. Flamebait? Someone must really be insecure about their favourite programming paradigms.
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Doesn't matter. They have nowhere else to go, because only Sammy can handle their orders.
Besides, just because the 20 Android manufacturers do not individually exceed Apple doesn't mean much.
They easily exceed Apple do when lumped together. If iPhone were banned from import
they would still sell elsewhere Android would surge in the US. Those phones use just as much
memory as Apple.
So Sammy wins either way.
Like I posted Android is outselling iPhone today and Android tablets are just starting
to come on line from dozens and dozens of companies.
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Every single day? Really? I doubt that very much. First of all Sunday, in many parts of the world have closed shops on that day and other parts of the world close down shops on Fridays early.
Take your silly argument somewhere else.
Go read the facts: http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/google-activates-500000-android-devices-every-day-20110629/
The tweet: https://twitter.com/#!/Arubin/status/85660213478309888
This is nothing to do with a platform war. Stop trying to make it into one.
The simple facts are that Apple has only a few device models, and an import ban hurts them in their biggest
market, but wouldn't make a dent in memory providers. What Apple doesn't sell, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony-Ericcson, and Samsung will sell. Do you think America is going to stop buying smartphones and tablets?
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Lets see some data for such a claim.
If they really were such a big buyer they would be stuck with buying from samsung since they produce most of the flash.
Apple makes up 2.6% of Samsung's sales, Sony makes up 3.7% and Dell makes up 2.5%.
Considering the market for NAND flash is very competitive now with every man and his dog making smartphones, memory cards and solid state drives, Samsung does not stand to lose 2.6% of sales if it cuts Apple off completely as there are other customers that buy the same products from Samsung.
It seems Apple needs Samsung products more then Samsung needs Apple as a customer. Suing them and hoping Samsung is not a vindictive company could be a really dumb move.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Oh, what a shame. I am not an Apple phone user, but am considering it for my next phone, when iPhone 5 or 6 rolls around, whichever has LTE on VZW. If it had an AMOLED screen, I would NEVER buy one. I had an early HTC Incredible with the AMOLED screen, it was absolutely horrible. Sure, it looked nice if you were in a pitch black room, but pretty much anywhere else it was horrible. Out in the sun, forget about even trying to look at your phone, you won't be able to see a thing. That was my shortest owned phone, thankfully I found some sucker to buy it after owning it a month, for retail price. Besides, the current "retina" display already looks better than any AMOLED phone I've seen...
How could you even get a patent on "viewing digital documents using a touch-sensitive display"? It is a passive activity of the "user", not the system and there is no description on the system responding in any way to the "viewing".
It should have been rejected unless if they at least rewrote it as "displaying digital documents using a touch sensitive display" because that is something that the device actual does.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
If you really think that Apple didn't know they used Samsung parts, and they didn't expect counter-suits, then you really don't understand businesses in general and Apple especially.
If you think Apple aren't betting that Samsung is not a vindictive company you dont understand law suits in general.
Apple are suing because Samsung smart phones are taking sales away from Apple phones. Apple derives over 50% of it's income from phone sales (a single product) so they've got a lot to lose if phone sales are threatened, namely their astronomical share price.
The suit was an act of a desperate company, if you cant see that you dont understand how tech business work. Those at the top dont worry about others, those who fall behind sue everyone (and that children, is how bubbles burst).
Samsung hold all the power here, if Apple becomes too bothersome, they'll just find a way to get rid of all their current contracts. Apple does not make up that much of Samsungs sales and the products they sell to Apple can be sold to many other customers (Sony, HTC, HP, Dell).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
To Samsung it is irrelevant how many semiconductors Apply buys, just how many it buys from Samsung. Samsung has a lot of customers, not the least of which is itself. The global economic situation means building new fabs is risky - flash memory is rapidly becoming commoditized and they likely believe there are more profitable things to be fabbing, given a limited production capacity. In light of the recent HTC and General Dynamics Microsoft patent agreements it looks like, if Samsung wins a similar IP decision it will gain a lot, and still not have to tie up more fabs on low-margin product - or build some more fabs with lower risk.
tldr: Shareholder win. Samsung fabs can be more profitably utilized, also, let's try to get some royalties from Apple.
Checking out the facts is always a good way to find the truth. But those darned facts can be slippery things, and sometimes they're not facts at all,
Comparing the sales of Apple devices against Android devices is a prime example. Apple is a manufacturer, Android is a mobile operating system. The names describe two different things; you can't find truth this way. It's like comparing the sales of Exxon and Honda and trying to prove some special value from those numbers.
I am not sure how it would even Hurt Samsung. If, for example, Apple goes to Toshiba, then other customers that would have bought from Toshiba will probably go to Samsung, given the vast volumes that things like Flash Memory sell at, Samsung has to lower their price only slightly to attract a lot of customers. In fact, since Apple probably has a pretty low price with Samsung already due to volume, they can probably sell it at the same price they would have, or more, and still attract customers.
Apple is a huge player, but they are still a single player. And if Intel or Toshiba or someone takes their business, you can bet they'll be cautiously thinking "Hmm.. we are interested in making stuff too..." (in particular, Toshiba makes PCs, Cell Phones, etc.)
But more to the point: It doesn't matter. Apple started the fighting - what would you do if you were Samsung? "Ok.. I guess since they are our customer, we'll roll over". Not likely. That would just let Apple know it can do the same thing any time.
... this must be the greatest time to be a patent attorney.
So what? What does it matter if Apple is ONE manufacturer and Android is many?
(First off, the only people that mention that fact is Apple Fanbois, who seem to spout it incessantly).
It doesn't matter one bit. Its totally not germane to the situation at hand. Why exactly did you feel compelled to once again pontificate that apple is one company and Android handsets are made by many?
If Apple can't import their devices Android sales will go thru the roof even faster than they are now.
Many Android producers will benefit, and they in turn will order more flash memory from Samsung,
and Samsung won't even notice any significant drop.
But lets go back and talk about those so called facts for a second.
Apple never releases their purchasing data, or even detailed sales data. Neither does Samsung. They wouldn't be that dumb.
And Apple never manufactures their own stuff. They hire it done in China. And the factories they hire produce OTHER things, Nooks, Kindles, tablets for dozens of other companies. And THEY pay for the parts, and Apple pays them back. So anyone (even the quoted URL up thread) is just speculating about where these parts are going. They probably attribute all memory shipped to Foxconn to be for Apple, yet I hold in my hands an Android tablet that was assembled by Foxconn.
So anyone claiming they have precise numbers is mostly guessing, and don't take into account the way markets work between China and Korea.
Further, since the undisputed facts are that ALL android manufactures together are out selling Apple iphones and ipads someone has to explain where they are getting all the Flash Ram. Why, from Samsung of course, since them make a lot of it. (40% allegedly). None of those manufacturers are as big as Apple, but all of them together exceed apple.
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That's a fitting signature...
They don't want a cut of the money. They just want Apple to stop suing them. But now that they're fighting things might get a little bitter.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I'm not sure that you realize that Samsung Electronics is the world's largest global technology company. Bigger than HP, IBM, Sony, Microsoft, and certainly bigger than Apple. In fact, Samsung Electronics brings in over two-and-a-half times more revenue than Apple. And under Samsung Group, Samsung Electronics is just one subsidiary. I don't know how it all breaks down, but in Korea, they also run a phone company (Anycall), a Wal-Mart equivalent (Homeplus), a life insurance company (Samsung Life Insurance), a couple hospitals (Samsung Medical Group), the second-largest shipbuilder in the world (Samsung Heavy Industries), and plenty more. Who's in charge of the outfit? I'd venture to say that it's someone who's seriously got their act together.
Your original quote was that the Usa was "far and away Apple's largest market". If they don't even have a majority share of the market, it's difficult to see how they're "far and away" the largest, and in fact if the market is defined as 'the Usa vs the rest", the Usa comes out second-best.
Not sure what your marketing or sales background is, but I don't know a SINGLE International entity that considers "the non-US World" as a single market. It's almost always broken up as Europe or EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), South/Central America, and Asia Pacific. And NONE of those markets are as big as the US market for Apple. In fact, I'm pretty sure Apple breaks their markets down that way as well.
Thus the original contention - the US is the biggest market for Apple - is correct. At least if you consider markets as Apple considers them.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Good point. Apple takes 57% of mobile industry profits, selling just the iPhone which has only 4% of the entire mobile marketshare. Everyone else, including the likes of Nokia, RIM, LG, Samsung, ZTC, etc. who sell the rest of the phones, gobble up the remaining share of the profit.
So even though Android phones outside the iPhone probably by 3:1 or more (half a million activations/day), Android phones don't make very much money at all. On the other hand, Apple just rakes in the cash.
This would help Samsung avoid falling into the trap of selling phones and making barely any money off them.
Hell, Apple might just go and cross-license, and use that to squeeze Samsung on parts as well. The net effect for Apple would be they pay the same amount to Samsung collectively as they had before. And Apple probably will get those concessions because as the #1 customer, they also have options
Well while Apple might activate about half that number of iPhones right now, they are growing into new markets and if you add in iPod Touches and the iPad which can be either 3G+Wifi or Wifi only then iOS comes out way ahead. If you look at install base then Android is not even close to touching iOS even if you ignored the heavy fragmentation of Android versions available for specific handsets.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
It's not a small profit hit. Apple is far and away the biggest customer for flash memory that there is.
-jcr
I thought Apple didn't support flash :-P
Yeah but none of those joints deliver iDevices, the world can go on w/out super markets, health care or cargo ships but can you imagine the world without iPads?, how can anything be done?! /s
Explain how Samsung makes money on the installed base.
This thread is about the sale of new devices and what an import ban would do to Apple. Installed base means nothing in that context.
Try to stay on topics. If you want to start a my phone is bigger than your phone jihad take it somewhere else. It's been done to death.
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Uh... wait... So Apple wins if you compare phones AND mp3 players AND tablets? Seems a bit of a stretch, especially when the story is about... well.. phones. This ignores the fact that Android has absolutely nothing to do with the story, nor does the respective market shares of devices, or, sillier still, mobile OSs.
We were talking about Samsung still being able to sell memory to devices makers if this ban happens. Last I checked flash memory didn't care if it was in an Apple branded device or anything else, much less what arbitrary flavor of OS said device is running. The reasoning goes; if Apple can't sell iPhones in the US, then people will still need devices, those devices will also have (probably) Samsung memory, regardless of what OS they run.
Further, who cares? Oh no, iOS has more installs! Should I care? Is that, magically, a measure of quality now? If so, then we all know Windows is the best OS, and IE is the best browser. Apple always has been that way, they control the hardware and software, so comparing them to the rest of the ecosystem isn't very useful.
Also, is there any proof to your claim that iOS "wins" when you take in account IPod Touch and iPads? Does this ignore the various flavors of Nook, and all of the various (albeit flawed) Android tablets, including the cheap Chinese ones? What happens if I expand "Android" into "mobile devices running modified Linux kernels, since it is pretty much nothing more than a modified kernel with some skinning and tweaks.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
The problem with concepts like "the largest" is that it doesn't convey any real information. In the chart provided with your link, the top ten are listed. Of those top ten, it appears that Apple accounts for about 20% or so. Now, there are thousands of outfits in the world that purchase these. Camera and camcorder manufacturers, car manufacturers etc. It seems quite unlikely that the top ten account for half the total market, they are quite probably a lot less.
What does this mean? It means that even if Apple is, by some margin, the largest OEM buyer in the world, they still account for a single digit percentage of the business. Assuming that the relationship holds for Samsung, Apple would therefore account for less than 10% of the Samsung business. Now, that is total. Samsung is only trying to block US imports, which is, assuming (optimistically) that the US is half the market, that the hit for Samsung will be below 5%. That is a small hit to take if you can seriously damage a significant competitor or, perhaps even better, get some of his profits as royalties.
Apple's such a huge player in the chip business, they can really distort the market if they wanted to
Being the largest doesn't actually mean that you are large. From the numbers posted in this thread it appears that Apple, at best, buys in the higher single digit number of OEM hardware. That is not big enough to distort the market.
The loss of Apple's account will devastate Samsung's semiconductor business
The numbers published says that this is not so. Apple account for sub-10% of the market total. Probably similar for Samsung. Samsung semiconductor can handle a sub-10% hit to their business. Apple would not be able to inflict such a hit though, anyone who supplies Apple in the future would have to get rid of some of their customers, who would have to turn to Samsung.
Please read a little bit before posting nonsense. Yes, Apple will be big with 7-8 billion worth of revenue for Samsung. Samsung yearly revenue is somewhere in the $180-$200 billion. In other words, Apple is 3-7%. Currency fluctuations account for more variability than does winning or losing Apple.
Apple accounts for $7-8 billion of a total of $180-200 billion revenue. Samsung is obviously not going to like losing Apple, but currency fluctuations are more important to their bottom line than is Apple.
That is the problem with a commercial monopsony, they should be as equally illegal as monopolies, not that the US government has done anything to stop even the most blatant monopolies in the past decade.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Biggest SINGLE customer maybe, but the sum total of all the others would surely outweigh that
Burma?
And we always thought Apple were a US company. Or are these products made in Chinese sweatshops by any chance?
If Samsung succeeds in obtaining this ban, then that's billions of dollars they lose in sales of flash memory to Apple. Who's in charge of that outfit?
They are negotiating.
When the economy grinds to a halt, and the only people making a living are lawyers, maybe - maybe - we'll get change.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Who cares? They'll get the new cornea display!
This is blinging
So I guess Samsung is schizophrenic now?
All companies with multiple divisions have MPD. Why would the guy in charge of phone sales care how much business the flash division does?
Odd. I have had the exact opposite experience and find it hard to believe that you aren't confusing the various technologies, or are simply one of them Apple bots/fanboys conjuring up some justification/something.
But whatever. YMMV, I guess.
Am I missing something, or didn't Apple have to buy the memory from Samsung prior to putting it in their devices? Why would Samsung care if they then sold them? The devices are built, just not in the US currently.
Walk with Music;
I point you to the exact frigging chart in the original URL that contrasts the USA to the rest-of-the-world. Obviously there is some merit in comparing the two, and obviously some people do in fact consider the USA and rest-of-the-world to be comparable.
Which is not to say that your comment is even relevant - I wasn't objecting to the 'largest market' part, I was objecting to the 'far and away' part. This was supposed to be obvious in the comment you replied to because I used the term 'far and away' 5 times!
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Explain how Samsung makes money on the installed base.
This thread is about the sale of new devices and what an import ban would do to Apple. Installed base means nothing in that context.
Try to stay on topics. If you want to start a my phone is bigger than your phone jihad take it somewhere else. It's been done to death.
Install base does not make Samsung money now but neither do those activations of android phones because a lot of them have been sitting in the channel for months until the carrier ran a BOGO promotion. But what it does represent is the strength of the platform to third party developers and if you have a critical mass of devs which in turn leads to more applications, that makes the platform more attractive to people buying the devices.
Unlike with iOS, those activations are not really growing the install base very much because they many of them might be replacements and because handset makers are dragging their feet on upgrading Android on existing handsets, their resale value is almost nil so the phones being replaced are likely being recycled instead of going into the used market.
Yes, we are supposed to be looking at sale of new devices and it not only concerns phones but all devices that use Samsung chips. The facts remain that Apple is not only Samsung's largest flash chip customer but their consumption is greater than all Android phones combined and Apple products tend to not stay in the channel long which is why you do not see sales except just before a hardware refresh.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Uh... wait... So Apple wins if you compare phones AND mp3 players AND tablets? Seems a bit of a stretch, especially when the story is about... well.. phones. This ignores the fact that Android has absolutely nothing to do with the story, nor does the respective market shares of devices, or, sillier still, mobile OSs.
We were talking about Samsung still being able to sell memory to devices makers if this ban happens. Last I checked flash memory didn't care if it was in an Apple branded device or anything else, much less what arbitrary flavor of OS said device is running. The reasoning goes; if Apple can't sell iPhones in the US, then people will still need devices, those devices will also have (probably) Samsung memory, regardless of what OS they run.
Further, who cares? Oh no, iOS has more installs! Should I care? Is that, magically, a measure of quality now? If so, then we all know Windows is the best OS, and IE is the best browser. Apple always has been that way, they control the hardware and software, so comparing them to the rest of the ecosystem isn't very useful.
Also, is there any proof to your claim that iOS "wins" when you take in account IPod Touch and iPads? Does this ignore the various flavors of Nook, and all of the various (albeit flawed) Android tablets, including the cheap Chinese ones? What happens if I expand "Android" into "mobile devices running modified Linux kernels, since it is pretty much nothing more than a modified kernel with some skinning and tweaks.
Dude, stop it with the linux fanboyism. We are talking about how much Samsung flash capacity is used by Apple products. Apple is the largest consumer of flash memory in the world. That is a fact. They also sell most of their products quickly without having a lot of inventory sitting in the channel at any one time. They have been trying to catch up with demand for the iPad 2 for months since it was released this spring.
IPod Touches, iPhones and iPads all use flash memory and they all run iOS. Please do try to keep up. So if you compare the amount of flash memory in all iOS devices with the amount in all Android devices sold on any given day, there is more on the iOS side of things. If you just compare device numbers sold iOS wins again by a significant margin.
In a nutshell, not only are there more iOS devices sold per day but they contain more flash memory on average than Android devices. Those chinese devices that you mentioned not only do not sell very many because of their low quality but they usually have very little onboard storage.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Apple's such a huge player in the chip business, they can really distort the market if they wanted to
Being the largest doesn't actually mean that you are large. From the numbers posted in this thread it appears that Apple, at best, buys in the higher single digit number of OEM hardware. That is not big enough to distort the market.
You are simply not getting it at all. Apple is such a big player in the flash market that companies like RIM and Acer are having trouble sourcing enough flash memory for their tablets.
Don't forget that not only does Apple use flash memory in iPhones but they also sell even more iPod Touches and they are selling a lot of iPads. They also sell quite a few macbook airs which all have large SSDs in them.
Now if you compare the average size of onboard storage in android devices on the low end with iOS devices, you start to see that a big difference. Android would have to be selling 10X what Apple sells to make up the difference of what Apple consumes from the flash market and just iOS devices alone outsell all android devices combined even if you include those cheap chinese devices sold as CVS. If you count the amount of flash chips then it is even more one sided.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Please read a little bit before posting nonsense. Yes, Apple will be big with 7-8 billion worth of revenue for Samsung. Samsung yearly revenue is somewhere in the $180-$200 billion. In other words, Apple is 3-7%. Currency fluctuations account for more variability than does winning or losing Apple.
Samsung is a large conglomerate of companies you dumb ass. You are comparing Samsung revenue to what Apple is buying from their flash and other chip OEM business. That part of Samsung cannot afford to lose Apple as a client. Also, revenue is not the same thing as profit. Guess which one is more important to investors? A shitload of revenue with a negative profit is worse than having less revenue and some profit.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Apple accounts for $7-8 billion of a total of $180-200 billion revenue. Samsung is obviously not going to like losing Apple, but currency fluctuations are more important to their bottom line than is Apple.
That is for all of Samsung http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung dummy. The total revenue for the electronics group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Electronics is unknown but the net income (profit) for 2009 was only 8.33 billion USD for that division and that group includes telecommunications, consumer electronics and semiconductor business.
That means that Apple's contribution to the bottom line of the semiconductor groups is significant and a loss of them as a customer would be devastating to Samsung.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Dude, stop it with the linux fanboyism.
I'm not. Actually the whole bottom bit was to illustrate how stupid install base pissing contests are, especially in the mobile market. Notice how, on a discussion about phones, you expanded it to include non-phones, then I expanded it to include a whole real operating system, also notice that I extended this to two products (Windows and IE) which a majority of us here don't find very special, despite being insanely popular. I don't care is Linux, iOS, Android, Windows, or whatever else is "winning", I find it an absolutely moronic metric.
Back on topic, Apple has been hinting at moving away from Samsung for awhile now. So even if this ban doesn't happen (it won't), Samsung loses Apple. If, on the other hand, this ban does happen, Android (and Windows) devices will rise to fill the gap, and most of them are also using Samsung memory. As much as the fanboys would like to argue otherwise, iPhones (/pad/pod/touch) aren't in a separate class than other mobile platforms, they are completely replaceable, and completely analogous, with other devices. If the iPhone falls in the US, Samsung's market would remain roughly stable.
. If you just compare device numbers sold iOS wins again by a significant margin.
Does it? I don't see any evidence of this. It might be out there, but... And does said evidence take in account, again, EVERY device running Android? And, again, who (profanity here) care what OS the device runs? Win Mobile devices need flash, iOS devices need flash, Android devices need flash, homebrew Linux devices (like the Kindle) need flash, homebrew other OS devices need flash. Hardware has nothing whatsoever to do with whatever OS a platform is using. More to the point; do you really think that if all iwhatnots suddenly were banned, people wouldn't buy the alternatives in equal number (ignoring whinging fanboys, which are an extreme minority of any user base)?
Oh no! I can't buy an iPhone/pad/pod/touch! I guess I'll do without a smartphone (tablet/mp3 player)? Or... buy the exact same product (meaning does has parity of function) from a different manufactures, and running a different, equally capable, OS? The only market that would be hurt, really, is tablets, since most people with iPads own them for their Apple-ness, and the "hip factor" far outweighs the actual utility factor (unlike phones), and there are no competitive products out there yet. But removing tablets from Samsung's market isn't going to hurt much, since they are pretty uncommon (what percentage of Americans own an iPad? 2-3%?)
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
If iPhone were banned from import
they would still sell elsewhere Android would surge in the US.
Yes, good point - total aggregate demand for Samsung chips from the US market should stay fairly level.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
You are simply not getting it at all
Yes, I am actually, I am just not a Born Again Apple Worshiper. Here is a clue. Apple is somewhere around 5-7% of the total market. That means, as I was saying, that even though they are the biggest, their share is simply not big enough to distort anything at all.
Android would have to be selling 10X what Apple sells to make up the difference of what Apple consumes from the flash market and just iOS devices
So, you have been playing with your calculator again? You really shouldn't, since it makes your calculator look like a genius compared to you. Android devices out-sell iOS devices. In other words, according to you, the average iOS device has more than ten times the on-board storage of the average Android device. That simply is pure and utter bullshit.
Flash memory is used everywhere. Cameras obviously, phones, cars, usb memory sticks, medical instruments, robotics and so on. So, how much of that market is Apple? The iPhone has sold some 50 million plus/minus since it came on the market. That is less in total than the estimated number of digital cameras sold each year (60-80 million digital cameras are sold each year). Apple has sold about as many iPods total as they have sold iPhones total. To make it easy, lets pretend that the iPod with flash and the iPhone has been on the market for the same amount of time, then Apple has sold some 100 million of these things in four years. In the same four years, if you go by the low number of digital cameras, 240 million have been sold, which means that digital cameras alone out-sell Apples entire iXXXX portfolio more than 2:1. How many of those digital camera owners have more than one flash chip? Since most digicams comes with a tiny chip, I'd say that probably half of the digicam customers have two chips. No iPods can switch chip, so that is not an issue. Suddenly camera equipment is out-selling Apple 3:1 or more.
Yes, Apple is (with a slight margin) the largest semi conductor buyer in the world. That doesn't tell us anything about the absolute market power Apple has, since "the largest" could be anything from less than one percent to more than fifty percent. Apple is somewhere around five percent. Five percent is not enough to be able to skew the market. Not even close. Which was my point.
Now turn around and sob into your Steve Jobs pillow and take Economy 101 over.
From Japan.