Samsung Takes a $10B Hit From Apple Rumors

Samsung isn’t exactly in financial trouble, but no company in the world is going to laugh off a $10B drop in market value. Reuters reports that the Korean handset giant took an Old-Testament-Level beatdown when Taiwan’s DigiTimes reported a rumor about Apple placing huge orders for DRAM with Japanese chip-maker Elpida.This, of course, draws a pretty grim picture for Samsung’s earnings, as their chips have been used in Apple’s ridiculously popular mobile devices and the business deal represents a hard-to-ignore percentage of their earnings. Samsung’s stock dropped 6.2 percent in a single day to a 9-week low of approximately $1,100 USD and, according to Reuter’s, it was their biggest daily fall in four years.Reports of Elpida being purchased by Micron have also come to the fore and talks are supposedly in progress.

This could further serve to drink Samsung’s milkshake because, as Lim Dol-yi, an analyst at Solomon Investment & Securities says, “A merged Micron-Elpida could pose a significant threat to South Korean memory chipmakers, and Elpida’s huge order from Apple was the spark that triggered these worries.”The irony of this rumor having come from DigiTimes isn’t lost on us here at Macgasm. As we recently reported, Time‘s Harry McCracken demonstrated clearly (and a little embarrassingly) how DigiTimes is wrong about Apple predictions 3/5ths of the time. Why investors and the market in general would put so much (sorry for the pun) stock in DigiTimes‘ reports about Apple business, we have no idea. Nevertheless, Samsung is feeling some pressure over it and, if the reports turn out to be true, it’s going to hurt them.Source: ReutersVia: AppleInsider

 

Corey has been been a tech journalist with a focus on Apple since 1998 and has written for The Loop, MacHome magazine, and as games contributor for The Mac Bible, and co-hosts the iGame Radio Podcast. He works as a corporate consultant and professional musician in Ottawa, Ontario.