Samsung Faces Weakest Quarter Since 2009 As Memory Chip Market In 'Worst Slump In Decades' (cnbc.com) 26
Samsung is expected to report its worst profit in 14 years due to falling prices for memory chips -- the company's biggest business -- and weak demand. CNBC reports: The South Korean technology giant guided earlier this month that it would post operating profit of 600 billion Korean won ($449 million) for the first quarter. If Samsung reports this number, it would be the company's lowest profit since the first quarter of 2009. Samsung releases preliminary earnings guidance, but does not give detailed figures. It reports its full first quarter earnings on Thursday.
Samsung is the world's largest maker of memory chips, which go into everything from PCs to servers in data centers. During the height of the pandemic, demand for consumer electronics was high, as people stayed home. Electronics companies piled up chips to go into these products. But buyers are now cutting back on purchases of these goods due to inflation and macroeconomic concerns, leading to somewhat of a memory chip glut.
Samsung is the world's largest maker of memory chips, which go into everything from PCs to servers in data centers. During the height of the pandemic, demand for consumer electronics was high, as people stayed home. Electronics companies piled up chips to go into these products. But buyers are now cutting back on purchases of these goods due to inflation and macroeconomic concerns, leading to somewhat of a memory chip glut.
Maybe PC companies can take advantage of this? (Score:1)
Maybe Apple and other PC companies can take advantage of this, and if the machine isn't upgradable, stop shipping RAM-starved configurations? For example, Apple's 8 GB base model of RAM is tiny compared to how much RAM modern stuff takes up. 16 GB is minimum, while 64 GB is what is needed for a lot of applications (even Chrome tabs).
If not direct RAM, the absolute best caching card around, now that Optane is dead, is a battery backed up RAM card. Yes, battery backed up DRAM isn't new, and has been old ha
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while 64 GB is what is needed for a lot of applications (even Chrome tabs).
If you have extra memory going to waste, Chrome (and Firefox) will use it for cache, but if you don't have it, it won't use it. This trope is old and tired
And what common "lot of applications" "needs" 64GB?
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You say that as if I haven't had Chrome drive my machine deep into swap. Thankfully doubling my RAM to 32 GB seems to have put an end to that.
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You're making things up [imgur.com].
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Chrome opens a process per tab, if you have a crapload of tabs open then Chrome can eat your ram. A lot of people use their browser in that way. Right now I have five firefox windows open with over ten tabs each, but most of them aren't active so they aren't punching my RAM in the nuts like Chrome would do by default. You can change some settings to make Chrome use less RAM, though.
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Ten tabs? Amateur. I've got three windows with over 15 tabs each, and I rebooted this morning.
I'm a big believer in spending some money to make a problem go away. So my 13900k system has 128gb. Might not use anything close to it 99% of the time, but if I can avoid that 1% I consider it well spent.
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> Maybe Apple...
You thought Apple wasn't purposely gouging? This just increases their profit margin.
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> Maybe Apple...
You thought Apple wasn't purposely gouging? This just increases their profit margin.
Apple uses a SOC architecture, so Samsung's RAM prices are irrelevant to their prices.
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> Maybe Apple...
You thought Apple wasn't purposely gouging? This just increases their profit margin.
Apple uses a SOC architecture, so Samsung's RAM prices are irrelevant to their prices.
Someone who knows better about what Apple does should chime in, but most SoCs incorporate a separate DRAM chip into the SoC package. I believe Hynix is Apple's DRAM supplier, but DRAM prices are highly competitive (well, aside from the occasional collusion), so Samsung's DRAM prices still affect Apple.
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Yes, battery backed up DRAM isn't new, and has been old hat for decades, but no other means of storage can beat it for speed, wear, and reliability, provided the RAM is ECC
The refresh cycle in DRAM is active operation. You need serious battery to keep it going. You might be thinking SRAM which can operate off of a coin battery. Keeping state on a latch circuit is a passive operation and really low drain for modern MOS transistors. And really the entire DRAM thing you speak of is the entire point things like FeRAM exists. So how about use that instead? DRAM is great for density and with the ability to pack in the required logic (because the cells take up so little space)
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Ever since RAM got cheap enough to use it in this way, there have been DRAM drives, with or without battery backup. The battery only has to last through an outage. Historically they were designed to be populated with your old server RAM when you retired the machines (they literally designed them to use whatever RAM was available on that basis at the time.)
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I have one of these, they were used as an SSD (it's still a solid state drive).
The RAM disk had a battery pack that charged from the power supply, an opti
nVidia (Score:2)
Maybe nVidia could help by putting more RAM on their video cards.
boo hoo (Score:1)
Contrast to just a couple of years ago when they were making record profits:
https://news.samsung.com/globa... [samsung.com]
Cry me a river.
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The pandemic bump obviously couldn't have lasted forever. They should have saved up for a rainy day. They probably did, but hid it away so that they can publicly complain that they need gov't assistance.
Modern "capitalism": Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. They party hearty and we muggles clean up after.
People Don't Buy Sidegrades (Score:2)
Mistake (Score:1)
Quality Issue (Score:2)
Sounds like their quality is too high. They need to build more planned obsolescence into their products. I shouldn't have a Samsung product that lasts more than a year!
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Sounds like their quality is too high. They need to build more planned obsolescence into their products. I shouldn't have a Samsung product that lasts more than a year!
I've never had a Samsung product that lasted more than two years, so they're definitely on track...
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My Samsung TV (UE40C8000) from 2011 still works as well.
One of my Samsung monitors did fail during warranty though. But the other one worked (and still works) fine.
PC gamers are mocked if they lack VRAM (Score:2)
I can see Samsung's pain eventually being eased, especially if the mid generation console upgrade includes more RAM, and next generation consoles go hog wild on it.
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The AI craze is going to sell a lot of memory.
Price Fixing (Score:3)
It's the economy stupid (Score:3)
We're having high inflation in almost everywhere except China, where they're dumping billions into the economy. That means discretionary purchases are down, driving down one sector and nervous businesses aren't investing large amounts of capital into tech until they can see which way the economic situation goes. Example: Did I buy a new S22 this year? Now, I have an S21 and despite an $800 trade-in offer, I'll hang on to the S21 for another year.
The quarterly reports from these companies will paint a better picture in the coming weeks as more companies report earnings.