Several days ago I covered a DigiTimes report that said Samsung was experiencing “larger than expected” demand for the Galaxy S4 and that they’re having issues manufacturing enough memory chips for the device. This is Samsung we’re talking about here, the leader in DRAM manufacturing.
Today, in a separate report on DigiTimes, there’s news that Samsung has started buying up chips from their competitors, namely Elpida and Toshiba. To understand why this is significant, pretend you’re trying to buy something from an auction site. Someone with more money than common sense sees the item you’re trying to buy and then starts bidding insane amounts of cash in order to win the product you want.
If someone like HTC or Nokia or Sony wants to buy memory chips for X dollars, and Samsung comes along and says they’ll happily pay 105% of X, that not only makes like harder for other handset makers, it potentially eliminates them altogether.
I’m just shocked that Samsung is in this situation in the first place. Again, the memory chip market is one that they dominate. They’re the number one player. And they can’t make enough?
