

Apple and Samsung Are Friendly Again, and the Competition Should Be Terrified - adventured
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-01/apple-and-samsung-are-friendly-again-and-the-competition-should-be-terrified

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enlightenedfool
some one finally realized that Samsung and Android in general are not really a
threat to Apple and its device business. They both got their own markets.

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hyperpallium
Android is also Apple's antitrust friend, just as Apple was for MS in another
era. And a popular free operating system protects Apple from entrants (like
Windows Phone) because it's hard to compete with free. Yet, it suits Apple
because their focus is premium products and premium profits - they aren't
suited to, and don't want to, cover low-end commodity markets. So there'd be a
gap there anyway.

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adventured
As Jobs noted at the D5 conference (the interview with Gates), Apple's
business doesn't work without Microsoft type companies. Those guys provide the
lower 2/3 of the market, and Apple can be BMW / Porsche.

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EwanG
Wonder if it occurred to someone that Apple could simply buy Samsung...

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bane
I don't think you understand how big Samsung is. Any fanciful acquisition
notion is more likely to go the other way around and Apple would merely be one
of the larger divisions of the conglomerate.

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visakanv
According to Forbes, Google's market capitalization currently stands at around
$382 billion, while Samsung is currently worth $186 billion. That would enable
Apple to buy, and shut down, two of its biggest rivals in the consumer
electronics space.

– [http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/11/what-you-could-buy-
with-a...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/11/what-you-could-buy-with-
apple-700-billion-market-cap/)

~~~
bane
Samsung's yearly revenue is in excess of $300 billion/year and growing. About
2x Apple's.

Samsung _Electronics_ is a division of Samsung and accounts for $186
billion/year.

Put another way, Samsung's Electronics division earns more revenue that all of
Apple.

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wesnerm2
This may not really be true anymore. Apple may earn more revenue than Samsung
in 2015. Apple reported 74.6 billion in sales versus Samsung's 48.8 in
calendar 2014 Q4. The most recent quarter saw pretty even results with Samsung
slightly ahead with 43.6 billion vs Apple's 42.1 billion.

~~~
bane
Than Samsung _Electronics_. Again, an important distinction. We're comparing
revenue of all of Apple against a division of Samsung.

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ChuckMcM
_After Apple, SanDisk’s biggest customer is Samsung, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg._

Really this is just a 'short SanDisk' article :-) But more seriously, it is
interesting when supply chains get squeezed down to a single supplier, it is
an unstable configuration historically as the supplier inevitably feels they
aren't getting enough of the value[1] which then disrupts overall supply.

I am also really surprised that Intel hasn't more aggressively stepped in
here, seems like there is some margin for the bottom line they can pick up.

[1] In all economics you're at a good balance if the seller thinks you paid to
little and you think you paid too much.

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rdsnsca
The only way Intel will get Apples business is to make ARM chips for it.

If you read the iPad chapter in Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, you would see
that Intel was Jobs original pick for the iPad CPU. They fell out over a few
issues, power consumption and control of the chip design being but two of
them.

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artmageddon
I thought Samsung was already providing Apple with hardware for the iPhone?

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egwynn
I think the story is that they were, and then they weren’t, and now they will
again.

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agumonkey
It's a weird love/hate relationship. The previous fallout seemed pretty bad,
sued for Billions of dollar; yet business brought them back together. Mutual
interest is a strong force.

