Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Updated: Samsung Exacts Its Revenge on Apple (AAPL)

Update: "British Court Not Amused By Apple's Apology: Apple must pay ALL of Samsung’s court costs… including parking, phone calls etc (AAPL)"

Original post:
This would cover a pretty big chunk of the billion the jury awarded Apple in August.
Each year. Through 2014 minimum.
From MarketWatch:

Samsung hits Apple with 20% price hike: report
Samsung Electronics , the world's largest technology firm by revenue, raised the price of mobile processor supplied to Apple Inc. AAPL -0.47% by 20% recently, Chosun Ilbo reported Monday, citing a person familiar with negotiations between the two tech giants. 

"Samsung Electronics recently asked Apple for a significant price raise in (the mobile processor known as) application processor," the person was quoted as saying in the report. "Apple first disapproved it, but finding no replacement supplier, it accepted the (increase.)"...MORE 
HT: The Market Ticker who writes:
...Suing someone who is a single-source supplier is usually one of the dumber things you can do, as they're quite capable of making sure that any judgment you "receive" comes right back to them and out of your hide.
This is especially true when you try to sue because you "patented" a box with rounded corners.

So, let's see if we get this right -- if Apple pays $20 (for example) for these application processors, it now pays $24.  At 200 million units that's a cool $800 million annually that Apple gets to swallow.  
(Incidentally, the various BOM analysis sites say that the actual cost on that chip is somewhere between $14 and $28 in quantity depending on the generation - I4, I4s or I5 with the chips being the A4, A5 or A6 -- so this is a fairly-decent estimate.)...MORE