Chip shortage impacting everybody but Apple, 2021 Galaxy Note in danger says Samsung

Posted:
in General Discussion edited March 2021
At an investor conference, Samsung Co-CEO Koh Dong-jin said that Samsung is streamlining its smartphone lineup, and a casualty of the ongoing chip supply pinch may be the 2021 Galaxy Note lineup.

Front entryway to Samsung's Austin, Texas facility
Front entryway to Samsung's Austin, Texas facility


"There's a serious imbalance in supply and demand of chips in the IT sector globally," said Koh. "Despite the difficult environment, our business leaders are meeting partners overseas to solve these problems. It's hard to say the shortage issue has been solved 100%."

Samsung is not just dealing with supply issues in Taiwan and China. Its Austin, Texas chip fabrication facility has still not returned to full production, after the record-breaking February storm shut it down, Wednesday morning's report from Bloomberg noted.

Samsung is currently experiencing a shortage of Snapdragon chips. Earlier predictions said that the shortage could impact production of mid- and low-end Samsung models. Other supply chain reports claimed that there were supply concerns surrounding Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 888 processor -- and Samsung's own comments seem to bear that out.

"The tightened supply of Qualcomm AP chips produced by TSMC is affecting everybody except Apple," analyst MS Hwang from Samsung Securities said. "PCs will soon be hit due to the short supply of display driver ICs, and the profitability of TV will be affected by soaring LCD panel prices."

Overall, Samsung is expecting the chip shortage to have a big impact on its business in the first half of 2021. It declined to provide figures, or percent estimates.

The global processor shortage has been ongoing for several months. It first hit the automotive industry and has now spread to the consumer electronics market. In February, Xiaomi vice president Lu Weibing said that the situation is "not a shortage, it's an extreme shortage."

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,529member
    I don’t know that apple is totally unaffected. I think it’s fair to say the iPhone is unaffected, But I wonder if we’d be seeing more updates to other product lines if it weren’t for shortages.


    beowulfschmidtwatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 4
    JWSCJWSC Posts: 1,203member
    This is the power of having billions in cash that you can advance to suppliers years in advance.
    kurai_kagecommentzillawatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 4
    1348513485 Posts: 363member
    JWSC said:
    This is the power of having billions in cash that you can advance to suppliers years in advance.
    True.  Also the planning and analysis to avoid the shortage in the first place. Years ahead of the need.

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 4
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,700member
    JWSC said:
    This is the power of having billions in cash that you can advance to suppliers years in advance.
    It also depends upon how you write your contracts. A common type of contract allows a consuming company (like Apple) to have the first dibs on all product, but the price of the product is still not controlled by Apple. So Apple will still get all the product it wants, but it still has to pay the higher prices.

    You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_first_refusal

    This type of contract is also common in some sports league's rules for free agents. I have read that Apple does use this type of contract with some suppliers.
    watto_cobra
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