Items tagged with iSuppli
According to IHS iSuppli, the SSD market will continue to boom this year, thanks to the rapid rise of so-called cache drives. These drives -- we reviewed a 60GB example from Corsair last month -- are popular with OEMs because they pair a small amount of NAND flash with a traditional hard drive. We aren't surprised to see cache drives taking off in desktops, but their popularity in notebooks is a little harder to parse -- particularly when you consider that Hybrid Hard Drives, like Seagate's Momentus XT, have been on the market for several years. While Seagate's HHDs aren't necessarily as fast as a cache drive + HDD combo, OEMs tend to favor solutions that allow them to integrate functionality....
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One of the less logical claims that's been made about tablets in the past twelve months is that the devices would somehow supplant or replace notebooks. This last has been supported by various companies, including Apple (claims that Apple became the top mobile vendor in 2011 factor tablet sales into the equation). Sales data continues to indicate that tablets are not, in fact, replacing notebooks and are unlikely to do so. A new report from IHS Supply sheds more light on the situation. "Despite the intense competition from media tablets, notebooks remain a useful tool that has become an essential part of modern life—rather than a luxury item,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst...
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Intel's obscene share of the microprocessor market has grown even more grotesque, at least if you're AMD or any other chip maker fighting for scraps. If you're Intel, well, life just keeps getting better. New numbers are in, and according to data from market research firm IHS iSuppli, Intel now dominates the competition by accounting for 81.8 percent of global microprocessor revenue. If you work for AMD, you just threw up a little bit in your mouth. Intel claiming the lion's share of the market isn't anything new, it just so happens that the Santa Clara chip maker took a bigger bite in the second quarter. Intel increased its lead by 1.1 percentage points, which had double the impact on AMD as...
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Windows 8's primary feature (at least thus far) is its ability to run on ARM processors and, by extension, its tablet-centric UI. According to analyst firm IHS-iSuppli, official Windows support will give the ARM architecture the ability to do what no other CPU design has ever done: break the x86 monopoly. "Starting in 1981, when IBM first created its original PC based on Intel’s 8088 microprocessor, the X86 architecture has dominated the PC market," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst of compute platforms for IHS. “Over the next generation, billions of PCs were shipped based on X86 microprocessors supplied by Intel and assorted rivals—mainly Advanced Micro Devices Inc. However,...
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Analyst firm IHS reports that chip supplier inventories have risen for the seven consecutive month. The continued rise in inventories reflects a general belief that consumer demand for electronic products will soon increase, though economic indicators are somewhat sketchy on this point. "Increases in stockpiles during the first quarter reflect efforts by semiconductor suppliers to rebuild inventory for products that were in short supply during the capacity crunch of 2010,” said Sharon Stiefel, analyst for semiconductor intelligence at IHS. “Suppliers also are moving to strategically build for the higher demand expected later this year. In a fortuitous stroke of good timing, semiconductor...
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iSuppli has published their findings from a recent teardown of HTC's Thunderbolt and come to some interesting conclusions therein. The Thunderbolt, which is currently Verizon's top-end Android phone, has an estimated bill of materials (BOM) of $262. That's the cost of the phone's components, not the total cost of manufacture, and much less than the total cost of the device once marketing, shipping, and warranty costs have been factored in as well. According to IHS, the Thunderbolt is the most expensive phone it's ever deconstructed. Note: Verizon currently offers the Thunderbolt for $249 with a two-year contract. The largest single contributor to the Thunderbolt's price tag is its 4G support....
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The popularity of its iPod, iPhone, and iPad product lines have propelled Apple to the top of the charts when it comes to NAND flash consumption. iSuppli reports that the Cupertino-based company has surpassed HP (the former champ), with 2010 purchases coming in at $17.5 billion. That's a massive 79.6 percent jump from 2009, during which Apple bought just $9.7B in Flash. "Apple's surge to leadership in semiconductor spending in 2010 was driven by the overwhelming success of its wireless products, namely the iPhone and the iPad," said iSuppli analyst Wenlie Ye. "These products consume enormous quantities of NAND flash memory, which is also found in the Apple iPod. Because of this, Apple in 2010...
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In the chase for first place among hard drive makers, Western Digital's acquisition of Hitachi should pay off handsomely. Market research firm iSuppli reckons the purchase will net WDC a commanding 49.6 percent share of global HDD shipments, increasing its lead over Seagate (29.4 percent) from just 2 percentage points to 20.2 percentage points. Equally important, the purchase opens the door for WDC into the enterprise HDD segment, iSuppli says. "The enterprise HDD market garners significantly higher margins than the consumer segment, which makes the enterprise a fast-growing market for HDD revenue," said Zhang. "To date, WDC has largely been absent from the enterprise segment. However, Hitachi...
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The IT industry has begun to warm to the idea of a sustained recovery after the hammering it took in 2009 through the first part of 2010, but industry analysis firm iSuppli has warned that the current level of inventory buildup could cause problems if market demand slows in 2011. Original graph, data from iSuppli At the end of 2010, inventory levels stood at 83.6 days, uncomfortably near to the 84-day level that kicked off the industry downturn in 2008. Current levels don't automatically mean a second downswing is imminent, but Sharon Stiefel, semiconductor analyst with IHS, notes that the situation bears watching. "Inventory levels arguably now are high by any standard, illustrating the difficulty...
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Handset makers take note. If you want to cook up quarterly profits, the recipe is easy: Stock up on Google's not so "secret sauce" (as iSuppli calls it) Android platform and serve hot. According to iSuppli, this is exactly what's been working, and out of the Top 10 smartphone brands in the second quarter, the majority were rocking Google's delicious open-source OS. "Every brand that has put effort into designing smart phones using Google’s mobile operating system is riding the Android wave," said Tina Teng, senior analyst for wireless communications at iSuppli. "From the spectacular growth of HTC and Samsung, to the steady advances of Motorola, Android is the secret sauce for smart phone...
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The good folks over at market research firm iSuppli picked apart Apple's latest iPod Nano, going through the parts piece by piece to come up with a true cost of materials. The final tally? Just $43.73, which only applies to the parts, and not the cost of labor, the so-called Apple Tax, and everything else that jacks up the price more than three-fold in the retail sector. "Instead of piling on features, as so many brands do with their latest products, Apple with the sixth-generation iPod has maintained or even removed some attributes in order to fit the form factor and function desired," said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst and teardown services manager, for iSuppli. "This has...
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To the average Joe, it might seem as though the knock-down, drag-out battles between AMD and Intel have slowed to what amounts to a thumb wrestling match by comparison, but market research firm iSuppli sees things a different way. According to iSuppli, even though both Intel and AMD maintained their market share positions in the global microprocessor business so far in 2010, this only reflects "intense competition" among the world's two top chip makers. "The static market share situation might suggest that the second quarter was an uneventful quarter in terms of the competition between the two dominant microprocessor suppliers of Intel and AMD," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute...
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After nine months of looking at Acer's backside, Dell has moved back up the ranks in the global PC market and has retaken the No. 2 spot, according to market research firm iSuppli. Dell was able to capitalize on a "sales setback" that affected Acer during the second quarter of 2010, putting the OEM in the runner-up position behind market leader Hewlett-Packard (HP). "With its product line heavily focused on mobile PCs, Acer's sequential decline in notebook shipments impacted its position at the total PC level more than its competitors, which were able to draw on the upswing in deskop shipments to bolster their total shipments," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms research,...
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The iPad is certainly the hottest device to physically ship in 2010 so far, and of course, it has people asking lots of questions. Lots and lots of questions. But one question that doesn't get asked much by the average consumer is how much it costs Apple to build an iPad, but that's why iSuppli is around. This research company is famous for breaking down bills of materials in order to come up with a raw material total for any given product, and the company has been hard at work breaking down the individual parts list in order to create a total cost for the first-ever Apple tablet. Apple was fairly pleased with being able to offer the iPad at $499, and by and large, many seem to agree that $499...
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