Sharp Warns That It Might Collapse 284
angry tapir writes "Japan's Sharp, a major supplier of LCD displays to Apple and other manufacturers, has warned that it may not survive if it can't turn around its business. The Osaka-based manufacturer said there is "material doubt" about its ability to continue operating in its earnings report filed Thursday. Sharp added, however, that it still believes it can cut costs and secure enough credit to survive. Its IGZO technology for mobile displays is likely to be a key element of its business strategy."
They just need to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They just need to... (Score:5, Insightful)
because then Apple tells them to get bent, buys all their displays from someone else and Sharp goes under instantly.
Re:They just need to... (Score:5, Funny)
What does anyone really expect when SHARP sells BS products like the Sharp IG-BC2UB High Density Plasmacluster Ion Generator for Car Use [amazon.com]?
What does that even mean?
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It's an air filter. Negative ions in the air make smoke particles stick to the (positively charged) filter better. They work better than filters with no ion generator, but not anywhere near as good as not smoking in the first place.
Re:They just need to... (Score:5, Informative)
Ionizers literally drove The Sharper Image into bankruptcy. The Sharper Image produced the Ionic Breeze ionizer which Consumer Reports concluded [quackwatch.org] was "ineffective" as an air cleaner and produced "almost no measurable reduction in airborne particles."
Worse, all ionizing purifiers generate ozone. The EPA states [epa.gov], "Relatively low amounts [of ozone] can cause chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath, and, throat irritation. Ozone may also worsen chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma and compromise the ability of the body to fight respiratory infections".
So in reality not only are ionizers ineffective, they're actually bad for you.
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Yeah, but so is smoking.
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Perri-air, fresh from Druidia, will always be the best.
Re:They just need to... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They just need to... (Score:4, Interesting)
I own one, as well as a few other Plasmacluster devices.
They are basically air purifiers that use a combination of filters and ion generation. Unlike older ion generators they don't produce ozone. The ions cause airborne particles to either fall to the ground or be neutralized (e.g. mould is killed).
I use them to help control my allergies. They were really bad, especially at work. I find that the Plasmacluster on my desk, the one you linked to that I keep in my car and the two I have at home do reduce the symptoms quite a bit. Combined with medication I can breath more or less normally now. I tried Panasonic's Nanoe devices but didn't find them to be as effective.
That sort of product is extremely popular in Japan, where several manufacturers have large ranges. Sharp went a bit nuts with theirs, adding ion generators to things like vacuum cleaners and washing machines. They do definitely work though - NHK did a test where they tested various product's ability to kill mould and found that some were quite effective.
The only real down side is that they need humidity to work, generally 50% or more. Newer models often have a water tank so that they can humidify the environment up to around 60%.
Re:They just need to... (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They just need to... (Score:4, Interesting)
There is much talk about this every time a new ECU comes out, but it is still (with very few exceptions) not the case yet. Every new ECU promises to be "locked" and unable to be edited, every new ECU is then cracked for modifications directly afterwards.
Not to mention the fact that you can hook up a little bluetooth dongle from eBay (15 dollars) to your Android phone with a 5 dollar app and read all fault codes/statuses from the ECU directly. If anything, modern cars are EASIER to work on that old carb'd stuff. The only downside is that you can't just stare at it and guess, you actually need to learn what to do. Of course, that always should have been the case anyway.
But a "Sharp Apple" (Score:4, Funny)
Apple is more likely to buy Sharp and try to keep the entire supply chain in-house.
But a "Sharp Apple" could leave a bitter taste
Re:But a "Sharp Apple" (Score:4, Funny)
What if it was a Sharp Apple with rounded corners?
Re:They just need to...Buy Apple. (Score:5, Interesting)
1. No, not nearly enough unless they want to spend pretty much all of it. Sharp is huge, and selling to a foreigner would require massive amount of extra funds to essentially bribe a lot of japanese legislature.
2. Sharp has problems with money flow due to current banking environment and crisis hitting its sales and profit margins hard, in addition to increasing competition. It's not really ready to collapse, that statement was most likely aimed at helping it secure low cost loans with governmental backing, as is the way of things in Japan.
3. Expertise in question simply doesn't exist. This is what Sony tried once, threw a LOT of resources at the problem and failed in a spectacular margin. Biggest problem is completely different corporate culture, japanese and american simply do not mix.
Many people nowadays think that money solves everything. It really doesn't. What money can do is support inefficiency until it runs out. But it won't fix the problem causing the drain.
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There aren't that many places to buy high quality LCD displays in volume and Apple just burnt its bridges with Samsung. I say, with Sharp teetering (no doubt in part because of Apple stinginess) LG is in an excellent position to raise prices.
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because then Apple... buys all their displays from someone else
Like who? Samsung?
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Re:They just need to... (Score:5, Interesting)
because then Apple tells them to get bent, buys all their displays from someone else and Sharp goes under instantly.
An electronics manufacturer I talked to was in a similar situation where a large customer pretty much said that they wanted things made cheaper or they would take their business elsewhere. Instead of shitting his pants he went over the numbers and regrettably informed the customer that he couldn't build things at the price they demanded. A few month later they got back and accepted his original price.
Moral of the story?
If you can't produce at the demanded price then chances are that your competition can't either.
The customer is only right as long as he is willing to pay, if he doesn't want to pay he is no customer and you should spend your time on those who appreciate your services.
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I'd love to see that in the Automotive sector.
OEMs go to the suppliers yearly, demanding a (often contractual) reduction in price by 1-2% ... whether the suppliers are able to supply the parts at the lower cost is irrelevant, and most will gladly bend over in fear of not loosing the next deal (which they'll likely also lose money on).
90s called. (Score:3)
Perhaps they think they'll make it up on volume?
It's already priced in up front (Score:3)
OEMs go to the suppliers yearly, demanding a (often contractual) reduction in price by 1-2% ... whether the suppliers are able to supply the parts at the lower cost is irrelevant, and most will gladly bend over in fear of not loosing the next deal (which they'll likely also lose money on).
Actually what happens is that the lower tier suppliers price in future price reductions knowing that the OEMS will demand price reductions in future years. The suppliers aren't stupid so they price that in up front. Occasionally someone is dumb enough to not take this into account and they lose their a$$ on the job and aren't a factor the next time around. I'm a cost accountant and deal with this all the time. You pretty much have to assume between 1% and 5% give backs (amount depends on the customer) w
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Well, Sharp has a very nice patent portfolio, so that could be valuable to Apple. Sharp used to manufacture very nice phones. On a side note, for what I saw in Japan Apple is seen in the same light that many Japanese corporations, so that wouldn't be really a problem. After all, Sony had a stupid moron of American origin* for too much time at its helm and that almost destroyed their company, too. But, I think that what is causing now more troubles to Japanese corporations are the high prices on energy since
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Maybe it's volume? Sharp probably bid for Apple's business like others did. Selling it for more would mean no business at all.
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It’s not volume – it is overcapacity. LCD manufacturing has high fixed costs – that is it is a capital intensive business.
A few years ago everybody built fab plants – and then the economy turned south so people stopped buying large screen TVs. (oversimplied, but.)
So, when there is overproduction one has 2 choices – mothball the entire plant (complete loss) or engage in a brutal wall of price cuts and attrition. The logical choice is price cuts and attrition (well, the logical c
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They just need to...Yen & R&D. (Score:3, Informative)
Part of Sharp's problem's are twofold. Their investment in R&D accounts for a lot of their debt. And of course Japans overall problem with the Yen.
You can't solve financial problems that way. (Score:2)
You can't solve financial problems by raising prices. You have charge prices similar to what others are charging or else you will just lose all your business. You have to look at what's driving your costs and figure out if you can reduce them enough to stay afloat, or if you need to be rethinking your business plan.
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You can charge more when there's a shortage on the market. But there isn't one now, unlike people are implying. There may be on in the future as there are basically three large scale LCD panel manufacturers in the world, Samsung, LG and Sharp. If apple really does manage to get itself banned from purchasing from Samsung, LG and Sharp may be able to increase prices on their hardware sold to apple due to less competition and possible shortage with increase in sales from other competing products.
That said, thi
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You can't solve financial problems by raising prices.
You can if you have a monopoly. As far as I can tell, there's only two players in the high end, high volume LCD business, and one of those is at war with Apple. That leaves Apple with only one choice of supplier.
Re:They just need to... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:He meant the LCD panel itself. (Score:4, Insightful)
You won't find a Dell logo inside the Dell display either. What's your point?
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And the same LG panel inside.
Time for Apple to go for the jugular (Score:4, Interesting)
This would be an opportune time for Apple to buy Sharp, re-organize the beast then ramp up displays and other parts for its booming business. If Sharp collapses, Apple will be in trouble - guaranteed.
Re:Time for Apple to go for the jugular (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple can not buy sharp because Apple's profit margins are way to high, buying Sharp will kill those margins and Apples share price along with it. The problem with Sharp is it kept narrowing down their product base and made itself very vulnerable to fluctuations in sales in it's remaining markets, hence the current problem. It will likely be fine in a few years, still no where near profitable enough for Apple to buy.
Basically they have put themselves up for sale for their manufacturing facilities as a merger with a more solvent and complete electronics company. Optimum partner would be of course Panasonic who invested heavily in unmarketable plasma screens and needs to shift to LCD.
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It doesn't matter if profit margins go down, as long as profits go up at the same time. Adding another profit base to your business isn't bad just because your margins go down.
You are speaking rationally... perception is what matters in stock valuations, especially a stock as widely held by "enthusiast investors" as AAPL. Part of the valuation perception in AAPL is the unusually high profit margin, merge them with a nice profitable entity like Archer Daniels Midland and it will muck up that crystal clear picture of what makes AAPL such a desirable stock to hold.
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It doesn't matter if profit margins go down, as long as profits go up at the same time. Adding another profit base to your business isn't bad just because your margins go down.
You are speaking rationally... perception is what matters in stock valuations, especially a stock as widely held by "enthusiast investors" as AAPL. Part of the valuation perception in AAPL is the unusually high profit margin, merge them with a nice profitable entity like Archer Daniels Midland and it will muck up that crystal clear picture of what makes AAPL such a desirable stock to hold.
Apple could always acquire Sharp through a subsidiary company. That way Apple's profit margins (and hence, stock price) are firewalled from Sharp.
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All else being equal, If you've got 1 billion in the bank, and you get 15% letting it sit there, or by acquiring a company that returns 15%, but instead use it to acquire a new business that returns 7% you just threw away 80Million in year one, and that just compounds over time.
So yes, adding another profit base to your business can easily be quite a terrible idea.
Of course if the company in question is a major supplier of yours, it is entirely possible that all things are not in fact equal.
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perception is what matters in stock valuations, especially a stock as widely held by "enthusiast investors" as AAPL
Are those the same "enthusiast investors" who drove AAPL down $120 in the seven weeks since the iPhone 5 introduction?
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The share market lives on profit margins, that's just the way it is, end of story. Companies routinely dump less profitable portions of the business empire to increase profitability and share prices.
Re:Time for Apple to go for the jugular (Score:5, Insightful)
Vertically integrating one of your main suppliers would probably not reduce profit margins as much as stopping production because you can't get parts.
Sharps market cap is about $3 billion. (Score:2)
Apple has easily 10 times that in cash on hand and a quarterly profit of 8 billion. If Apple wanted Sharp, the only thing blocking it would be japanese or american regulators. In reality a middle company like Foxconn or one of apples other suppliers would make a better fit.
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That's what unmarketable means (Score:2)
Re:Time for Apple to go for the jugular (Score:5, Interesting)
This would be an opportune time for Apple to buy Sharp....
This would be an even more opportune time for Samsung to buy Sharp.
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I doubt that would happen, historically the Japanese and Koreans haven't exactly been bff....
Oh how true, whereas America and Japan have always been best buddies, I totally get your point.
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But yeah,
True (Score:2)
Just like say Japan did to the European colonies and Germany did to almost all of Europe?
There is indeed lingering resentment and the Japanese indeed did not apologize or pay damages unlike the Germans but to think this matters on a high level unless it is convenient (when either side needs to divert attention from internal problems) is childish.
The higher-ups have no morals, they are perfectly willing to deal with former enemies often before the last victims have stopped twitching. See McArthur and the reb
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You are clearly from US and have had very little if any contact with how cultures in the "outside world of there be dragons" interact when it comes to neighborly conflicts that lasted centuries to millenia.
Reality is, it's not going to happen. No matter what.
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Sharp produces commodities. There is no profit in commodities. Apple is unlikely to buy Sharp. It will continue to buy small innovative companies like Siri.
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This would be an opportune time for Apple to buy Sharp, re-organize the beast then ramp up displays and other parts for its booming business. If Sharp collapses, Apple will be in trouble - guaranteed.
Why? Let some other electronics manufacturer buy Sharp, reorganize and dump non-proitable lines. and then buy displays from them. Apple doesn't care what name is on the display as long as they can get the desired quality at the right price. They do not need the distraction of reorganizing a company and the political fallout from laying off staff; what they can do is ensure they have a significant order for Sharp displays to make that part of Sharp worth saving, assuming they need the displays.
Not likely. (Score:2)
Apple doesn't buy large companies. And there's a good reason, Apple's management doesn't need to be worrying about restructuring and turning around a failing Flat-Panel display manufacturer. They've got enough to worry about just designing and selling their products.
But, Apple has been known to invest in companies in order to ramp up and modernize production. It's not too big a step to go from that to bailing out a company with loans. Though It would probably be smarter for them to give the money to a compa
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That would destroy Apple. It would saddle them with a high fixed cost plant right at a time when their ability to push new iPad sales indefinitely is starting to look like there may be a question mark in there some place. They only thing worse for Apply than not getting the displays they need would be having or having production capacity for ones they don't.
It would be better to have to source them elsewhere. The Koreans can crank then out as well AUO stuff might not be as dense but apple could make do
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Apple pretty much already manages Foxconn... All the processes are designed and supervised by Apple.
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We can only hope.
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You want the return of early industrial age, when most people could barely afford to live on monotonous 14-16 hour a day factory work?
Are you insane?
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That's a damn bad way to put it then, because the entire point of companies like Foxconn is that they let their buyers micromanage their production.
well (Score:2)
Great products, poor marketing (Score:5, Informative)
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And of course Sharp was really late to the game with Android smartphones, and their offerings(while having
Japan's Big 3 TV Makers Struggling (Score:5, Informative)
Four days earlier, #5 Panasonic (Matsushita) announced [ft.com] it's cutting its flatscreen TV production in half.
Sharp is ranked #4. Apparently all three of the Japanese manufacturers bet too big on TVs and are getting trounced by Korean rivals Samsung (#1) and LG (#2).
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This is probably because a lot of consumers have figured out that the TV they have is fine and they don't need a new one. Since they just got done buying one recently, the manufacturers seem to think that the buying trend will just continue to climb. It's a bubble, and it's popping.
There's just very little profit to be made selling TVs nowadays. Everyone that wanted a large TV *has* one by now, and there's nothing really that new that will encourage them to replace what they have. Prices have been drive
Re:Japan's Big 3 TV Makers Struggling (Score:5, Insightful)
The Korean brands have a lot of awareness right now, thanks in part to Apple basically standing Samsung up and saying "we're scared of Samsung!" which really added both brand awareness and boosted their reputation -which was nothing to sneeze at anyway.
Samsung has worked very hard to kill Sony. For a long time, that was their main mission: effing bury Sony. The only problem is that they've overshot the goal by making better products more or less across the board, and also that Sony has flopped in nearly every business unit. Samsung now sets the trends in phones and TVs, does very well with tablets, and has decent exposure in regular consumer electronics like pocket cameras and other items. Sony can only hope to follow. Aside from the PlayStation brand, Sony leads.... nowhere. In the future, Samsung is only going to become an even tougher company. They play to win. If iconic Japanese brands die along the way, that's absolutely fine with Samsung.
LG, after changing their name, embarked on putting appliances in lots of homes. That's a great way to make entire families aware of your brand: it's the fridge, the washing machine, and also the TV. And it's a brand with great peer acceptance. Your neighbors know LG and probably think it's a fine brand.
Both of these brands make good products for the most part. The neat part is that they both fight like hell to beat each other. So not only are they stomping on Panasonic and Sony, they are also trying to beat each other. This puts tremendous pressure on everybody else in the game. If you are Sony, you don't have one opponent or even two, you have closer to three or four because as much as Samsung and LG are bitter rivals, they have the same enemies and they will fight as one very tough force. If you are Sony, you don't just have to beat Samsung, you also have to beat LG AND you have to beat both of them combined which is intense enough to be its own entity.
After them, the Japanese brands are kind of lumped in with the no-name Chinese brands. Panasonic and Sony can't easily compete on price with the likes of Vizio or Sceptre, or the new Chinese-licensed brands like JVC, Magnavox or Philips. China hasn't stopped their own brands but they have realized they can just license some old brand name like JVC, play off the name and market what would otherwise be a noname product as a brand product.
TVs went through a phase where flat screens were a premium product, and at the high end yes they still are. But the low end is dominated by cheap TVs. Heck, you can get a 32-32" LCD TV at drug stores now, same as in the old days when a 12" B/W TV sold at drug stores. China will own that end of the market moving to the middle. Korea owns the top end -with Pioneer in for honorable mention on the high end. Everybody else needs to put on some knee pads and brace for impact. The middle market is going to get squeezed like an Oreo double-stuff left out in the sun.
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JVC stands for Japan Victor Corporation.
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That was last year. Still, I think that what are hurting them the most are the high prices of energy and the strong yen. The yen is around 20% more expensive than 2 years ago. No matter how much they try to restructure they can't offer competitive prices against Korean or Taiwanese offers.
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Flat Panel TVs have become Cheap (Score:2)
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I have two Sharp Aquos TV's a 65" and a 46" and both have been great TV's, it would be sad to see them fall I think.
translation is (partially) to be blamed (Score:3, Informative)
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/11/05/sharp-statement-lost-in-translation/?mod=WSJBlog
Sad (Score:5, Interesting)
Big Japanese mobile companies always take a long time to turn around if something happens. They all still don't understand why the iphone is successful since all the management level there was brought up in a time when NTT had a monopoly and the companies produced mobile phones nearly exclusively for NTT/docomo (imode), which in turn force fed the mobiles to the customers.
I liked Sharps products, learned programming on a MZ-80B. I always wanted to buy a zaurus, one of the first linux-based PDAs, but it was mainly sold/available inside Japan. When i lived in Japanlater, i bought a sharp netwalker T1 (only available in Japan).
The netwalker demonstrates all of Sharps shortcomings in a technically not so bad device:
-Target the Japanese market only from the beginning
-make no advertisements about the special features it has (e.g. standard usb host port, interesting pointing device layout)
-make a half-assed decision of using Ubuntu on it (for *two* devices they used the ARM port of Ubuntu)
-leave it unpolished, with easy to fix show-stopper bugs, trusting that the Japanese will always buy Sharp
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Big Japanese mobile companies always take a long time to turn around if something happens. They all still don't understand why the iphone is successful since all the management level there was brought up in a time when NTT had a monopoly and the companies produced mobile phones nearly exclusively for NTT/docomo (imode), which in turn force fed the mobiles to the customers.
Japanese electronics companies are some of the most innovative and fastest changing in the world. The Japanese economy is build in the idea that every year they come out with new models that have new widgets that people buy even though their old one isn't broke.
Japanese phones have had a lot of features that are only just coming to the west for years. Things like indoor navigation in underground railway stations, NFC payments, amazing camera stabilization, WiMax.
Every Japanese electronics manufacturer's mot
Sad times (Score:2)
There is something wrong... (Score:2)
That is too bad... (Score:2)
Because right now SHARP tv's are the best you can buy. They are better quality than Anyone else and honestly far larger than anyone else. Where else can you pick up an 80" LED backlight LCD for under $3500.00
LG is crap recently. their redesign has all plugs coming straight out the back.... DUH, no wall mounting unles you want a 3" gap.
Panasonic is still plagued with failed power supply boards.
Sony is overpriced rebranded LG.
Samsung sets are junk. Just like how their projectors are junk. Control protoc
Re:SHARP AND AAPL: SHE IS A GOING DOWN MY CAPTAIN (Score:5, Informative)
The 24-month chart is probably more informative [yahoo.com] than your 3-month chart. I realize it kind of spoils your intended narrative, though.
Like any stock, Apple's shares have seen significant corrections before - especially in the modern market.
Re:Short all around - shorting stock, shorter visi (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically the only people not buying AAPL are people who lack any vision.
When I hear that said about a stock, I'm inclined to research shorting it.
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And those who are taking a profit. AAPL generally follows the market but when it's bearish, it tends to go down slightly more than average.
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So what happens next quarter when Apple has had yet another 27-40% growth spurt, fueled by a large number of new products recently released?
What happens if Apple has a shrink spurt instead?
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Really, which LCD displays do they supply to Apple? LG and Samsung are major suppliers, I can't remember the last time I saw an LCD in an Apple product wasn't LG/Sharp.
Perhaps if Sharp actually was a major supplier they wouldn't be in quite so close to bankruptcy.
I guess you meant to say "LG/Samsung" in that second sentence, not LG/Sharp.
From what I've heard, the new iPad Mini uses Sharp screens.
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That was the rumor, the only thing anyone has seen in a Mini, is a Samsung display. Which wasn't part of the Rumor.
Yeah, that was a typo, I meant to say Samsung/LG.
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the iPhone 5’s three known display suppliers - LG Display, Japan Display and Sharp Corp. [xbitlabs.com]
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That isn't evidence. They are just repeating the rumor, much like the rumor for iPad mini, where Samsung was out, and Sharp was in.
But when they dissected a Mini, it had a Samsung screen. So much for rumors.
There is also one other problem. Sharp doesn't build IPS screens. LG and Samsung do (though Samsung calls it PLS).
Sharp is heavily invested ASV technology which is a VA offshoot with inferior viewing angles.
I have yet to see any evidence that Sharp screens are used in any of Apple products.
Apple are trying to move away from Samsung (Score:3)
Really, which LCD displays do they supply to Apple?
Apple tried to diversify their supply chain away from Samsung. Sharp are amongst those who made the retina displays for the iPhone 5 (and the mini Ipad)
This would be a really good time for Samsung to put the boot in. Interesting to see if they do anything.
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How did you know it was a Sharp LCD? How did you check?
Re:Lacking clarity (Score:5, Informative)
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This in northern europe, though. Is this a no-no in the US?
If you look like you have money and are planning to buy something, they usually will let you fiddle with the computers quite a bit. That's been my experience anyway, and I often look like a scruffy nerf-herder. As long as you've got money, you get to do stuff. It's the American way, after all.
Re:Lacking clarity (Score:5, Funny)
Without Monster Cables, the other displays are going to be cubic but far less rounded, the contrast less warm, and the colours markedly less spatial. I'm no expert, but even my unprofessional eye can spot these differences if I'm told up-front that Monster cables are being used.
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I still feel like it is important to know for me. It gives an idea of the current shape of the market: "sharp is being eaten".
Re:Is this important? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Doesn't sharp current produce the LCD display found in the iPhone 5?
Because Samsung gave them the finger.
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Samsung is still producing apple displays, the small ipad one is samsung for example.
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Will this void the warranty of my Sharp EL-330A calculator (in black)?
D'oh