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Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

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Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#41

Post by scarface74 »

totalZero wrote: post #27
silenussays wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't made a game changing device since Steve Jobs? The Apple Watch completely dominates that product category. There is no alternative that can even compare.

The entirety of "wearable, home, and accessories" amounted to 10.9% of revenue for the past quarter, which included Christmas, and 9.4% for all of fiscal 2019. In addition to the Apple Watch, that category includes Airpods, HomePod, Apple TV, Beats, iPod touch... Just because you like the Apple Watch doesn't mean that it has changed the way the company does business. And the fact that Apple doesn't break out gross ma…

The entirety of "wearable, home, and accessories" amounted to 10.9% of revenue for the past quarter, which included Christmas, and 9.4% for all of fiscal 2019. In addition to the Apple Watch, that category includes Airpods, HomePod, Apple TV, Beats, iPod touch...

The Apple Watch by itself is estimated to be larger than the iPod was at its peak. (http://www.asymco.com/2019/12/12/ipods-pro/) and the Airpods if they are not already larger than the iPod at its peak soon will be.

As far as the iPod Touch, the entire iPod line was less than 1.5 million a quarter when they stopped breaking out the numbers (years before they stopped reporting volumes of their other lines).

The iPhone when it was introduced was already introduced into a market with a 1 billion device/year run rate. Now close to 5 billion people own cell phones (https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-w...).

Also, 61% of their revenue comes from phones. (https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2020/financials-2020-1-...)

And of course the iPhone is going to sell well during the Christmas quarter and after they introduce new phones compared to most quarters.

https://sixcolors.com/post/2019/07/apple-third-quarter-2019-...

But the last time I checked, even a category that is only 10% of Apple's revenue still puts that category's revenue above all but the top 100 companies in the US.

Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#42

Post by lwb »

baybal2 wrote: post #12

I wrote before that semiconductor industry economists were awaiting a crash for a very long time. At least since 2016, I saw notion of a coming crash coming from very esteemed industry publications that cost few thousand bucks to access. Everybody in semi knows of the cyclical nature of the industry, and the non-stop long bull run since 2008 looked very unusual to many. Why is this so important? The reason is that fe…

> tenths of billions

Do you mean tens of billions? The difference is two orders of magnitude :)

Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#43

Post by adammunich »

swiley wrote: post #40
adammunich wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This absolutely. The chip people always make custom protocols for /everything/.

Custom protocols are not really the end of the world, it’s when they make a custom protocol and then use copyright to force you to do certain things in order to use it.

They really do slow down development though, and flrxe you to hire specialists who can make sense of the often terse datasheets.

Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#44

Post by cma »

pjc50 wrote: post #5
crmrc114 wrote: post #2

This article sounds alarmist. "Revenue fell 12% to $412 billion in 2019, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Monday in a statement. That’s the biggest drop since 2001, when industry sales slumped 32% as the dot-com bubble burst." I don't see how 12% is a skyfall number. Especially when compared to 32%. It was pay-walled so I did not read any further.

Revenue falling at all in any tech industry is usually cause for extreme concern, as all the investor numbers assume infinite growth.

Some of these companies had near monopolies for long stretches of time. If some of that is busted up through competition it could drop revenue while still being healthy. If you're invested broadly in the whole sector you might lose, but if you're invested in the successful challengers you win.

If actual demand was lowered rather than just supply changing due to effective competition, then it would be a bigger concern.

Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#45

Post by cgh »

Coincidentally, I've been wondering about dumping some cash into a semiconductor ETF like eg the VanEck offering (SMH). I noticed that there are leveraged ETFs like SOXL that magnify returns and I typically associate these riskier offering with precious metals and so forth. I hadn't realised that semiconductors seem to fall into that same "cyclical commodity" category.

Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#46

Post by Retric »

siracusa23 wrote: post #22
Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embedded chips are generally cheap. CPU’s sell for ~1,000x the price of most embedded chips. X00$ CPU vs X0c 32 bit microprocessors / microcontroller etc.

10c 32-bit microcontroller from Intel/AMD? Have I been buying the wrong chips? Care to share some links? EDIT: commenter above edited their post, mentioned $.10 MCUs from Intel/AMD

I edited the comment for clarity, but never mentioned Intel or AMD.

Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#47

Post by selectodude »

adammunich wrote: post #43
swiley wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Custom protocols are not really the end of the world, it’s when they make a custom protocol and then use copyright to force you to do certain things in order to use it.

They really do slow down development though, and flrxe you to hire specialists who can make sense of the often terse datasheets.

Wouldn't a lot of the complexity be due to the fact that these are likely the most complex pieces of engineering on earth?

Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#48

Post by cbanek »

mrspeaker wrote: post #29
ksec wrote: post #28

>Revenue fell 12% to $412 billion in 2019, ....That’s the biggest drop since 2001, when industry sales slumped 32% as the dot-com bubble burst. In 2001 post Dot Com Bubble, that 32% drop was real . The 12% drop in 2019 was only due to NAND and RAM went from Record High and back to "normal". Samsung was the most profitable company in 2018 simply because NAND and DRAM. Almost everyone in Semiconductor industry is makin…

I know we're being trained to hate journalists these days, but that quoted sentence is just stating a fact: the biggest drop since dotcom bubble... and the article reads very reasonable. I don't see anything controversial in there - seems to balance the negatives with things like "the rate of decline abated" and "the decline in industry sales didn’t stop investors betting on a future rebound." - how is that sensation…

As someone who watches the financial news, it almost feels more like baseball statistics, where they say something like, "this batter on sunny days in April has an advantage against left-handed pitchers."

While it may be true, it feels more like p-hacking than some kind of useful fact.

I felt like the financial industry was really doing this early in 2019, after the huge drop in stocks, everyone was like the S&P is up 20% this year already (forgetting to mention it was down a huge amount in December and ready for a comeback).

Of course how you frame these numbers and which numbers you pick is part of the reporting. When taking numbers of out of context, I think it can get a little sensationalist.

Re: Chip industry had worst sales year since dot-com bubble burst

#50

Post by codyb »

siracusa23 wrote: post #24
totalZero wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In saying that there cannot be a turndown because stocks are rallying, you are not comparing apples to apples. Companies can circle the drain while their stock rallies. Companies can do good business while their stock gets crushed. First, people are buying equities in general because interest rates are being held low artificially by the Fed, which has been pressured by the President to do this. Second, few traders an…

I'm honestly extremely pleased with my iPad Pro and Airpods Pro, both are honestly impressive pieces of tech. I'm coming from an EE background, so I might not be able to really distinguish nuances in software, but hardware-wise they are impressive. I can't agree with you on the Apple perspective, and it's my subjective opinion, I might be also biased since I have a large position on APPL. However, I can agree on the…

Apple’s most recent earnings call seems to suggest they’re doing just fine expanding into wearable accessories and monthly subscriptions as well.

Seems like half of NYC has airpods when I’m walking around and in most of the stores here they won’t be in stock until March (a jump from mid February a couple of weeks ago).

That could be supply chain disruption or they’re selling like hot cakes.

Very satisfied with my pro pod pair post purchase as well.

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