Samsung Shares Dive After Rumors That Apple Placed Huge DRAM Order With Elpida

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Posted May 16, 2012 at 5:16pm by iClarified

Samsung shares dropped over 6% today after a report that Apple placed huge DRAM orders with rival Elpida, reports Reuters. The drop wiped $10 billion off Samsung's market value.

Taiwan's DigiTimes, an online trade news site, reported that Apple recently placed large mobile dynamic random access memory (DRAM) orders with Elpida's 12-inch plant in Hiroshima, Japan, securing around half the facilities total chip production. It cited unnamed industry sources in its report, which hit shares of major chip suppliers to Apple. SK hynix shares closed almost 9 percent lower at a 20-week low - the biggest one-day drop in nine months. Samsung, the world's biggest DRAM maker, tumbled 6.2 percent to a 9-week low of 1.23 million won ($1,100) - the stock's biggest daily fall in nearly four years.

"It looks like Apple doesn't want to see Samsung and hynix dominate the chip market. Apple wants to maintain its bargaining power by keeping Elpida running," said Choi Do-yeon, an analyst at LIG Investment & Securities.

DigiTimes has a spotty record with Apple rumors so it remains unclear whether there is any validity to the story.

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Samsung Shares Dive After Rumors That Apple Placed Huge DRAM Order With Elpida

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mmc - May 16, 2012 at 10:04pm

Accually good time to buy stock in Samsung I would say. Samsung makes amazing products they currently have the fastest ram with lowest nm. And have some of the best screens. I love my SA950 screen. Apple is huge but a large ram order is very small compaired to how diverse Samsung is in so many other markets. Even in smartphones they are still one of the leaders. But in so many other markets they are strong. I find it funny that everyone wants to put these to companies against each other like some war over smartphones. I think since all they see in there hand each day is there smartphone so they some how think this is what is most important in life. There is so much other products manufactured by Samsung that will keep it a major player for a really long time along with Apple, even if they don't buy their ram.

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Thai - May 17, 2012 at 6:02am

Do you even get the main point of this event? Its a significant loss to Samsung. What it seem like that they're saying is, if Apple continue to buy those DRAM from Samsung, it will give Samsung a large gap of production with competitors. However, Apple chose Elpida, and Apple order alone account for half of whatever Elpida sold. Thats like increasing Elpida market share by 50% all of a sudden. How long would it take a DRAM manufacturer to increase 50% of production and sales normally? Not only that iphone and ipad sales will increase dramatically every year, thus, thats gonna be a big loss for samsung fasho.

mmc - May 17, 2012 at 11:05pm

Over 20% of the parts in the iPhone are made by Samsung. DRAM is very little part. Samsung has 20% of the smartphone sells. And many manufactures including Apple buy larger percentages of parts from Samsung. Overall out of all the parts manufactured that end up going into smartphones 40% is still made but Samsung. If we took 50 random smartphones and traced back each part where it was made you would see Samsung dominate. A large order of DRAM is I'm sure a good chunk. I could see 1 or 2 percent drop in stock. Buy 10% drop is not really reflecting on what the accual news means. Samsung parts are in nearly every laptop and smartphone and many screens are using there parts. Just cause it says another company name on the out side doesn't mean Samsung isn't inside. My point is it's a irrational drop. Samsung is a strong company. And a 1% drop in sales doesn't constitute a 10% stock drop. The only thing I can see happening here is they are anticipating Apple to cut them off completely and are thinking other major manufactures will start cutting them off as well. See them as a threat. But that would further strengthen my point that they are a strong company.