Linked List: October 6, 2014

Monday, 6 October 2014

Samsung Warns of Lower Third-Quarter Earnings ★

Dawn Chmielewski, reporting for Recode:

The company said it would report an operating profit of $3.8 billion for the quarter ending in September — a decline of nearly 60 percent from the same time a year earlier. Sales fell to $44 billion, off 20 percent from a year ago. […]

The South Korean electronics giant said that while smartphone shipments increased, its operating margins fell because of higher marketing costs, fewer shipments of high-end phones and a lower average selling price for the devices.

The company said it is responding with a new smartphone lineup that will include new mid-range and low-end devices, which would make Samsung’s products more competitive in markets such as China.

Yeah, that’s where the profits are. Good luck with that.

Analyst Claims Apple Will Consume 25 Percent of Worldwide DRAM Supply in 2015 ★

TrendForce:

Apple’s consumption of mobile DRAM will grow from the current 16.5 percent of the industry’s total production volume to 25 percent in 2015, as the California-based tech giant equips more smartphones, tablets and even notebook products with DRAM, said Avril Wu, Assistant Vice President of DRAMeXchange, a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce.

“Since Apple is already a major player in the mobile DRAM market, PC DRAM manufacturers will switch to mobile DRAM to meet the company’s demands,” said Wu. “This has indirectly caused supply shortages in the PC DRAM and server DRAM sectors.”

Take it with the usual recommended dose of Analyst Salt™, but that’s a rather astounding figure for a company that only makes mid- to high-end devices. (Via DF reader Ian Murren, who was speculating on Twitter today that perhaps the reason the iPhones 6 still only have 1 GB of RAM is that Apple is supply-constrained.)

Sapphire Supplier GT Advanced Shocks With Bankruptcy Filing ★

Swetha Gopinath, reporting for Reuters:

GT Advanced Technologies Inc, Apple Inc’s partner in a sapphire glass plant in Arizona, filed for bankruptcy on Monday in a stunning turn of events for a company whose fortunes looked bright only a few months ago.

The stock fell more than 90 percent to 75 cents, wiping out nearly all of its $1.5 billion market worth. GT was worth more than $2.8 billion in early July on hopes of its scratch-resistant sapphire glass being a part of the new iPhones.

“It’s unbelievable.… I don’t think anyone expected this,” said Dennis Dick, a proprietary trader at Bright Trading LLC in Las Vegas.

Apology accepted, Captain Needa.

iOS 8 Third-Party Keyboards Explained and Reviewed ★

Comprehensive piece by Josh Centers at TidBITS.