Since84
Moderator
To infinity and beyond!
Posts: 3,933
|
Post by Since84 on May 23, 2019 2:09:29 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by Lstream on May 23, 2019 4:32:31 GMT -8
Things are unfolding exactly as I suspected last Friday. The Trump stench and his clueless trade policies (trade wars are easy to win BS) are setting up Apple as a target in China and polluting the brand in that market. SMH, that everyone cannot see what a disaster this guy is.
|
|
mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,552
|
Post by mark on May 23, 2019 5:32:30 GMT -8
Apple TV is exactly why Apple needs to do the entire car and not just an add-on. How much profit has Apple TV made? Probably not a meaningful number at Apple’s scale. What’s the advantage of Apple TV over Chromecast or Roku? Apple TV may also be the reason why Apple shouldn't do an entire car! Can you imagine if Apple had done an entire TV, maybe a superb 42" at $3000, and a superb 55" at $4000. Today, after good flat screen TVs have dropped in price by over 80%, they could potentially have to discount them heavily, and worse, have hundreds of thousands, or millions, in the product channel that are essentially scrap at this point because they can't be sold. I will repeat this again and again and again ... Apple should do products that BOTH have a way to be greatly improved (like the iPhone, laptop, apps, etc) AND that have a way to provide a good gross and net margin. One without the other (TVs, maybe cars, breakfast cereal, etc) is not sufficient to decide to do a product. Exactly. Why would anyone think that Apple should get into a business with "brutal margins"? What's the end game, even if they make a substantially better product and can double margins from 6% to 12%, neither of those margins are good enough to bother doing it (the massive R&D and the massive capital expenditures) in the first place.
|
|
|
Post by longsince98 on May 23, 2019 5:56:56 GMT -8
Exactly. Why would anyone think that Apple should get into a business with "brutal margins"? What's the end game, even if they make a substantially better product and can double margins from 6% to 12%, neither of those margins are good enough to bother doing it (the massive R&D and the massive capital expenditures) in the first place. Phones have brutal margins. Computers have brutal margins. Apple has added value to both those industries in such a way that they can charge premiums. There are plenty of ways to add values to the auto industry allowing their premium pricing, and it’s a gigantic industry that has a lot of alignment with their company/product mandate. (I’m not sure how to fix my formatting)
|
|
|
Post by macster on May 23, 2019 6:41:04 GMT -8
Things are unfolding exactly as I suspected last Friday. The Trump stench and his clueless trade policies (trade wars are easy to win BS) are setting up Apple as a target in China and polluting the brand in that market. SMH, that everyone cannot see what a disaster this guy is. Its too early to say that Apple's brand is being hurt by nationalism. Who's going to sell their expensive phones? By the way don't you think there is a positive aspect in that iPhone's may sell better in nations outside China now that China has made a stink of the trade negotiations and is losing the PR war worldwide? Of course the anti-trump press doesn't help that notion because they are not on the President's side nor are they helping the US side by not chanting USA USA USA!. Also is it not clear that China has agreed in principle to what has been negotiated then all of the sudden... boom! 你要喝咖啡吗?不要 Translation = Not Want. I suspect it was all a stratagem that they negotiated in the first place.
|
|
|
Post by Lstream on May 23, 2019 6:57:35 GMT -8
Macster,
I wish what you are saying about the iPhone selling better outside China was true. There are many studies out there showing how much America’s brand has been hurt, since Trump took office. I don’t think China is losing the PR war at all. Chanting USA, USA, like this is some kind of trivial sports match isn’t fixing the brand any time soon.
With all due respect, I think your inward looking perspective, is blinding you to just how much animosity there is in the world towards America now. Brought on by Trump. I am a Canadian, and my company spends millions on wages every year in your country. I have been a staunch advocate for America for all of my working life. I am just an anecdote, but that good will in me is gone. I no longer believe that America stands for what is right in the world. I think you vastly underestimate how much harm comes from alienating even your best friends like Canada. A tiny minority here now believes that your administration can be trusted to do the right thing.
And I am convinced that this animosity is spilling over to Apple in China. And the impact will last a LONG time.
|
|
ems
Member
Posts: 97
|
Post by ems on May 23, 2019 7:45:16 GMT -8
|
|
mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,552
|
Post by mark on May 23, 2019 7:51:43 GMT -8
Phones have brutal margins. Computers have brutal margins. Apple has added value to both those industries in such a way that they can charge premiums. There are plenty of ways to add values to the auto industry allowing their premium pricing, and it’s a gigantic industry that has a lot of alignment with their company/product mandate. This is not true at all, about $250 goes into building a mobile phone, and they sell for $500+, those are huge margins. And PC components are also quite inexpensive and provide pretty good gross margins (though they are beginning to become a commodity-style product). The trick is, as you stated, using added value to translate those high gross margins into high net margins. That's where Apple shines, not much discounting, managing the supply chain well, especially when switching over to new models. But TVs and cars? They are all essentially the same product to a great extent, and if you open a TV, you will see panel, driver board, power supply board, that's it. They are all the same. Just like refrigerators. And the manufacturers have driven down the prices to match that sameness. Cars at least have a high end, but the issue with cars is even if you can build a high end vehicle, the HUGE capital costs still remain (to build a factory and a supply chain), and because it is priced so high (second highest priced purchase for nearly all people), the demand is by its very nature low. Basically, Apple can invest $100B into cars, but can't sell a million of them a year at a premium price. So it'll require 10+ years to make a decent profit, but the nature of the car business is that models have to change every 5 years or so, and that requires a whole other batch of new capital investment, and so on, and so on, and so on. Not a very good business if you want high margins.
|
|
benoir
fire starter
*
Posts: 1,318
|
Post by benoir on May 23, 2019 8:06:30 GMT -8
The Chinese play the long game - they are not beholden to election cycles characteristic of democratic states. And whilst trade with China is problematic, for all sorts of reasons it is surely not a straightforward issue to resolve. It certainly does not warrant a simplistic response, which regrettably has been Trump’s approach to date. It has been a response that has so far lacked tact and deftness. Rather than exacting a positive outcome from China, it has only served to agitate China and increase negative sentiment towards the USA and USA products. Apple has expended enormous effort and time to cultivate a market in China and this is being undermined/decimated by either a fundamental miscalculation or sheer ineptitude by Trump. How this plays out now is anyone’s guess but the current decline in AAPL from $210 to $180 is all Trump’s doing - and he said it would be easy...
|
|
|
Post by firestorm on May 23, 2019 8:27:41 GMT -8
Phones have brutal margins. Computers have brutal margins. Apple has added value to both those industries in such a way that they can charge premiums. There are plenty of ways to add values to the auto industry allowing their premium pricing, and it’s a gigantic industry that has a lot of alignment with their company/product mandate. This is not true at all, about $250 goes into building a mobile phone, and they sell for $500+, those are huge margins. And PC components are also quite inexpensive and provide pretty good gross margins (though they are beginning to become a commodity-style product). The trick is, as you stated, using added value to translate those high gross margins into high net margins. That's where Apple shines, not much discounting, managing the supply chain well, especially when switching over to new models. But TVs and cars? They are all essentially the same product to a great extent, and if you open a TV, you will see panel, driver board, power supply board, that's it. They are all the same. Just like refrigerators. And the manufacturers have driven down the prices to match that sameness. Cars at least have a high end, but the issue with cars is even if you can build a high end vehicle, the HUGE capital costs still remain (to build a factory and a supply chain), and because it is priced so high (second highest priced purchase for nearly all people), the demand is by its very nature low. Basically, Apple can invest $100B into cars, but can't sell a million of them a year at a premium price. So it'll require 10+ years to make a decent profit, but the nature of the car business is that models have to change every 5 years or so, and that requires a whole other batch of new capital investment, and so on, and so on, and so on. Not a very good business if you want high margins. Good points. If Apple was to buy Tesla, AAPL would immediately fall and would probably stay down for a very long time, while TSLA shareholders would get an immediate jolt of caffeine. Disrupting an industry is getting harder because much of the low fruit has already been harvested and because other companies saw Apple's success in disruption and have emulated it. On another subject, I'm wondering how long it will be until Apple has to start closing unprofitable stores in China. Nationalism in China is getting stronger, and Apple is in a very difficult position with both production and sales. A long time ago, in this forum, I suggested that Apple use some of its fortune to diversify its supply chain and move some of it back to America, rather than be so reliant on a foreign power. JD ridiculed me at the time for this idea, but perhaps it is proving to be worth entertaining.
|
|
|
Post by firestorm on May 23, 2019 8:34:03 GMT -8
|
|
Ted
fire starter
Posts: 882
|
Post by Ted on May 23, 2019 8:41:55 GMT -8
This is not true at all, about $250 goes into building a mobile phone, and they sell for $500+, those are huge margins. And PC components are also quite inexpensive and provide pretty good gross margins (though they are beginning to become a commodity-style product). The trick is, as you stated, using added value to translate those high gross margins into high net margins. That's where Apple shines, not much discounting, managing the supply chain well, especially when switching over to new models. But TVs and cars? They are all essentially the same product to a great extent, and if you open a TV, you will see panel, driver board, power supply board, that's it. They are all the same. Just like refrigerators. And the manufacturers have driven down the prices to match that sameness. Cars at least have a high end, but the issue with cars is even if you can build a high end vehicle, the HUGE capital costs still remain (to build a factory and a supply chain), and because it is priced so high (second highest priced purchase for nearly all people), the demand is by its very nature low. Basically, Apple can invest $100B into cars, but can't sell a million of them a year at a premium price. So it'll require 10+ years to make a decent profit, but the nature of the car business is that models have to change every 5 years or so, and that requires a whole other batch of new capital investment, and so on, and so on, and so on. Not a very good business if you want high margins. Good points. If Apple was to buy Tesla, AAPL would immediately fall and would probably stay down for a very long time, while TSLA shareholders would get an immediate jolt of caffeine. Disrupting an industry is getting harder because much of the low fruit has already been harvested and because other companies saw Apple's success in disruption and have emulated it. On another subject, I'm wondering how long it will be until Apple has to start closing unprofitable stores in China. Nationalism in China is getting stronger, and Apple is in a very difficult position with both production and sales. A long time ago, in this forum, I suggested that Apple use some of its fortune to diversify its supply chain and move some of it back to America, rather than be so reliant on a foreign power. JD ridiculed me at the time for this idea, but perhaps it is proving to be worth entertaining. Between making some phones in India via Foxconn and now this article, it looks like Tim is aware of the issues and taking action... appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/23/pegatron-could-start-making-ipads-macbooks-in-indonesia-as-early-as-juneI realize assembling (older) iPhones in India is also to avoid the penalties India imposes on goods manufactured outside its country, but it still fits in with the diversifying of the supply chain and lowering exposure to China theme.
|
|
|
Post by plcm123 on May 23, 2019 9:08:34 GMT -8
I see all these problem with Apple will go away when Trump goes away.
The Chinese are smart, they will continue to buy good products that have great value retention, even the Chinese diplomat guy who attacked Apple is still using iPhone.
Apple is still innovating like crazy, see their many patents that they have won. Apple will eventually refined their products in such a way that they will comprise of only a few components and put together by robots.
Yes the tariff war will hurt sales, but less sales means less costs and expenses, and margin effect will be minimal; even Apple was doing great before expanding to China market.
|
|
|
Post by macster on May 23, 2019 9:12:44 GMT -8
Macster, I wish what you are saying about the iPhone selling better outside China was true. There are many studies out there showing how much America’s brand has been hurt, since Trump took office. I don’t think China is losing the PR war at all. Chanting USA, USA, like this is some kind of trivial sports match isn’t fixing the brand any time soon. With all due respect, I think your inward looking perspective, is blinding you to just how much animosity there is in the world towards America now. Brought on by Trump. I am a Canadian, and my company spends millions on wages every year in your country. I have been a staunch advocate for America for all of my working life. I am just an anecdote, but that good will in me is gone. I no longer believe that America stands for what is right in the world. I think you vastly underestimate how much harm comes from alienating even your best friends like Canada. A tiny minority here now believes that your administration can be trusted to do the right thing. And I am convinced that this animosity is spilling over to Apple in China. And the impact will last a LONG time. Lstream, Any animosity in the world against the US is because CNN/BBC is their main source of US world news. CNN is the worst of the worst. Anyone with a brain can see that. It will blow over for those stuck on the fake news narrative once they have eyes to see. May take awhile but those in the know know China is the culprit concerning unfair trade. Have a nice day.
|
|
|
Post by plcm123 on May 23, 2019 9:16:36 GMT -8
By the way, if the Chinese want to show their true nationalism, they shouldn't keep copying Apple products. The fact that they are still copying shows what they truly are.
|
|
|
Post by longsince98 on May 23, 2019 9:23:03 GMT -8
Phones have brutal margins. Computers have brutal margins. Apple has added value to both those industries in such a way that they can charge premiums. There are plenty of ways to add values to the auto industry allowing their premium pricing, and it’s a gigantic industry that has a lot of alignment with their company/product mandate. This is not true at all, about $250 goes into building a mobile phone, and they sell for $500+, those are huge margins. And PC re components are also quite inexpensive and provide pretty good gross margins (though they are beginning to become a commodity-style product). The trick is, as you stated, using added value to translate those high gross margins into high net margins. That's where Apple shines, not much discounting, managing the supply chain well, especially when switching over to new models. But TVs and cars? They are all essentially the same product to a great extent, and if you open a TV, you will see panel, driver board, power supply board, that's it. They are all the same. Just like refrigerators. And the manufacturers have driven down the prices to match that sameness. Cars at least have a high end, but the issue with cars is even if you can build a high end vehicle, the HUGE capital costs still remain (to build a factory and a supply chain), and because it is priced so high (second highest priced purchase for nearly all people), the demand is by its very nature low. Basically, Apple can invest $100B into cars, but can't sell a million of them a year at a premium price. So it'll require 10+ years to make a decent profit, but the nature of the car business is that models have to change every 5 years or so, and that requires a whole other batch of new capital investment, and so on, and so on, and so on. Not a very good business if you want high margins. Whether you choose to view the product margins in isolation is up to you - everything that goes into the *business* portion of phones and computers is just as relevant as the products when it comes to margins. The key point is that almost no one in those industries makes money. Apple does because of their differentiators. I also run businesses in industries where nearly every other company make little to no margins, yet I’m able to attain consistent 30% net margins. It’s all about differentiators. With a small bit of imagination, the auto industry has tons of room for differentiation. I drive a wraith instead of other cars for very obvious but traditional differentiators. It takes leaders with vision to know how to create truly innovative differentiators. Lumping autos with TVs is a false narrative. ✌🏻
|
|
|
Post by lulli on May 23, 2019 9:28:16 GMT -8
Any animosity in the world against the US is because CNN/BBC is their main source of US world news. CNN is the worst of the worst. Anyone with a brain can see that. It will blow over for those stuck on the fake news narrative once they have eyes to see. May take awhile but those in the know know China is the culprit concerning unfair trade. Have a nice day. Strictly for the information of anyone who hasn't traveled much outside the US, doesn't know many foreign people, or has not immigrated from some other place during their adult life: What macster says about about the main source of news used by people outside the US is wrong and incredibly far away from reality.
|
|
|
Post by Lstream on May 23, 2019 9:46:09 GMT -8
Macster, I wish what you are saying about the iPhone selling better outside China was true. There are many studies out there showing how much America’s brand has been hurt, since Trump took office. I don’t think China is losing the PR war at all. Chanting USA, USA, like this is some kind of trivial sports match isn’t fixing the brand any time soon. With all due respect, I think your inward looking perspective, is blinding you to just how much animosity there is in the world towards America now. Brought on by Trump. I am a Canadian, and my company spends millions on wages every year in your country. I have been a staunch advocate for America for all of my working life. I am just an anecdote, but that good will in me is gone. I no longer believe that America stands for what is right in the world. I think you vastly underestimate how much harm comes from alienating even your best friends like Canada. A tiny minority here now believes that your administration can be trusted to do the right thing. And I am convinced that this animosity is spilling over to Apple in China. And the impact will last a LONG time. Lstream, Any animosity in the world against the US is because CNN/BBC is their main source of US world news. CNN is the worst of the worst. Anyone with a brain can see that. It will blow over for those stuck on the fake news narrative once they have eyes to see. May take awhile but those in the know know China is the culprit concerning unfair trade. Have a nice day. This fake news stuff is one of the biggest fallacies of the Trump base. All kinds of people who oppose him, don’t give a damn what CNN says. We don’t need a middleman to interpret what Trump says and does. We can read his tweets, and listen to him directly. No help needed.
|
|
|
Post by Lstream on May 23, 2019 10:01:49 GMT -8
By the way, if the Chinese want to show their true nationalism, they shouldn't keep copying Apple products. The fact that they are still copying shows what they truly are. Then what is Google? The enabler of almost every one of them.
|
|
|
Post by plcm123 on May 23, 2019 10:20:29 GMT -8
By the way, if the Chinese want to show their true nationalism, they shouldn't keep copying Apple products. The fact that they are still copying shows what they truly are. Then what is Google? The enabler of almost every one of them. Right, but Google started before this nationalism movement began.
|
|
chinacat
Moderator
AAPL Long since 2006
Posts: 4,426
|
Post by chinacat on May 23, 2019 10:25:15 GMT -8
Please forgive my ignorance/naivete, but the current situation has incited a burst of price target revisions by numerous analysts. What I (almost) never see is a date attached to these predictions. With a stock as volatile as AAPL, many such targets get hit both on the way up and the way down. The majority of our accounts, e.g. IRAs, are professionally managed, and our AAPL holdings are the only ones we "manage" (i.e., decide when to buy more) ourselves. I assume such targets are mainly relevant to actively managed accounts, and also that, like many things, timing is of the essence.
|
|
mark
fire starter
Posts: 1,552
|
Post by mark on May 23, 2019 10:38:05 GMT -8
This is not true at all, about $250 goes into building a mobile phone, and they sell for $500+, those are huge margins. And PC re components are also quite inexpensive and provide pretty good gross margins (though they are beginning to become a commodity-style product). The trick is, as you stated, using added value to translate those high gross margins into high net margins. That's where Apple shines, not much discounting, managing the supply chain well, especially when switching over to new models. But TVs and cars? They are all essentially the same product to a great extent, and if you open a TV, you will see panel, driver board, power supply board, that's it. They are all the same. Just like refrigerators. And the manufacturers have driven down the prices to match that sameness. Cars at least have a high end, but the issue with cars is even if you can build a high end vehicle, the HUGE capital costs still remain (to build a factory and a supply chain), and because it is priced so high (second highest priced purchase for nearly all people), the demand is by its very nature low. Basically, Apple can invest $100B into cars, but can't sell a million of them a year at a premium price. So it'll require 10+ years to make a decent profit, but the nature of the car business is that models have to change every 5 years or so, and that requires a whole other batch of new capital investment, and so on, and so on, and so on. Not a very good business if you want high margins. Whether you choose to view the product margins in isolation is up to you - everything that goes into the *business* portion of phones and computers is just as relevant as the products when it comes to margins. The key point is that almost no one in those industries makes money. Apple does because of their differentiators. I also run businesses in industries where nearly every other company make little to no margins, yet I’m able to attain consistent 30% net margins. It’s all about differentiators. With a small bit of imagination, the auto industry has tons of room for differentiation. I drive a wraith instead of other cars for very obvious but traditional differentiators. It takes leaders with vision to know how to create truly innovative differentiators. Lumping autos with TVs is a false narrative. Rereading my post, I could have been clearer. I wasn't lumping Autos with TVs, I was lumping all the brands of TVs together, and all the brands of autos together. TVs are commodity items and their insides are all close to identical, AND consumers expect inexorably lower prices for them. That's one reason Apple didn't make them in my opinion. Autos are sometimes commodity items, and sometimes have differentiators that people love and seek out (like Tesla to a great extent). However, differentiators alone isn't enough to want to be in the business. Need the differentiators AND need the scale to actually make a bunch of money on the product. So, let's take your example ... the Wraith you drive ... they've sold maybe a few thousand of them since they've existed (2013?). Great car, beautiful car, but no scale to actually make money and overcome the incredible capital cost required to enter the car business. The average phone is $400, the Apple phones are about $800. The average car is $35k or so. If the Apple car, which will be so much better than any other car out there, will be $70k, the market will clearly be limited to a relatively small number (well under a million, maybe even under 100,000 a year). Can't invest $100B with ongoing investments due to model changeovers and actually make it worthwhile. In fact, Tesla is a good example of this in motion. They made a better product, actually a much better product, with huge differentiators. And when they sold some for $70k, 80k, 100k, they could fund their ongoing growth, barely, but still could fund it. But then they realized that they weren't selling enough vehicles to reach scale, so they came out with lower priced models at $55k, and even down to $35k in some cases. BUT then suddenly the free cash flow from those models dropped to near zero (or even negative if you account for all the other costs involved), and they had to raise a few billion more in funds. So, it's a catch-22, sell a lot of cars at low margins, or sell few cars at high margins without being ble to recoup your original capital investment fast enough. Add to this, the problem that your models "get old" and have to be changed every 5 years or so, but not having the capital to do so. It's really not a winning combination.
|
|
ems
Member
Posts: 97
|
Post by ems on May 23, 2019 10:57:39 GMT -8
There's plenty of niche manufacturers that make it work in the car space, at small(er) scale. Tesla is probably one of the worst examples of how to run a car company, for innumerable reasons. AAPL could and would do far better, no question. AAPL is more like a McClaren in terms of build quality, but with the potential scale and reliability of Honda.
|
|
4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,632
|
Post by 4aapl on May 23, 2019 11:34:51 GMT -8
There's plenty of niche manufacturers that make it work in the car space, at small(er) scale. Tesla is probably one of the worst examples of how to run a car company, for innumerable reasons. AAPL could and would do far better, no question. AAPL is more like a McClaren in terms of build quality, but with the potential scale and reliability of Honda. Funny, that's exactly the sort of thing a non-profit that I am on the board is going through, deciding what we want in the future. Some non-profits, just as some businesses, find a size that they are happy with and just stay there. They are fine to stay small. Others have big dreams and move that way, but then don't get it all together and fail. With a non-profit that might be taking on so many tasks with a set volunteer force that they can't do them all without burning out. With a company, that may be taking on too much debt, inventory, or tasks, and then not being able to keep it going, profitably. But by trying to grow but not planning it out and getting more volunteers, or more sustainable funding and be able to move to a paid staff, they are setting themselves up for failure. Apple on many occasions has said that they don't want to be in a field unless they are at (or near) the top. They haven't always managed that, but that idea is much different than going into a field where realistically even a .1% marketshare quickly will be tough, and a 1% would likely take a decade even if things went well. (no idea what Tesla currently has) It's just a whole different mindset. OTOH, if Apple feels they have a competitive advantage in some way (i.e. loyal user base that is willing to pay a higher price for a better product that has great reliability and longevity), maybe they go into it just the same at least knowing they can make a dent in the universe. More and more, I think Apple may stay out of the general industry, either figuring out a way to get in without making the whole thing (partnering, etc), or heading in with an add-on but well integrated unit. Or they at least start with a niche, such as instead of fighting over the mid-sized car or SUV market, maybe they go for full autonomous 1/2 sized vehicle for congested big cities. Just something different that can use a great change while getting a foothold, similar to Tesla's not going after everyone with their initial sports car. Just wild-assed guessing. But what else is an armchair quarterback to do on a rainy day.
|
|
|
Post by longsince98 on May 23, 2019 11:37:18 GMT -8
Whether you choose to view the product margins in isolation is up to you - everything that goes into the *business* portion of phones and computers is just as relevant as the products when it comes to margins. The key point is that almost no one in those industries makes money. Apple does because of their differentiators. I also run businesses in industries where nearly every other company make little to no margins, yet I’m able to attain consistent 30% net margins. It’s all about differentiators. With a small bit of imagination, the auto industry has tons of room for differentiation. I drive a wraith instead of other cars for very obvious but traditional differentiators. It takes leaders with vision to know how to create truly innovative differentiators. Lumping autos with TVs is a false narrative. Rereading my post, I could have been clearer. I wasn't lumping Autos with TVs, I was lumping all the brands of TVs together, and all the brands of autos together. TVs are commodity items and their insides are all close to identical, AND consumers expect inexorably lower prices for them. That's one reason Apple didn't make them in my opinion. Autos are sometimes commodity items, and sometimes have differentiators that people love and seek out (like Tesla to a great extent). However, differentiators alone isn't enough to want to be in the business. Need the differentiators AND need the scale to actually make a bunch of money on the product. So, let's take your example ... the Wraith you drive ... they've sold maybe a few thousand of them since they've existed (2013?). Great car, beautiful car, but no scale to actually make money and overcome the incredible capital cost required to enter the car business. The average phone is $400, the Apple phones are about $800. The average car is $35k or so. If the Apple car, which will be so much better than any other car out there, will be $70k, the market will clearly be limited to a relatively small number (well under a million, maybe even under 100,000 a year). Can't invest $100B with ongoing investments due to model changeovers and actually make it worthwhile. In fact, Tesla is a good example of this in motion. They made a better product, actually a much better product, with huge differentiators. And when they sold some for $70k, 80k, 100k, they could fund their ongoing growth, barely, but still could fund it. But then they realized that they weren't selling enough vehicles to reach scale, so they came out with lower priced models at $55k, and even down to $35k in some cases. BUT then suddenly the free cash flow from those models dropped to near zero (or even negative if you account for all the other costs involved), and they had to raise a few billion more in funds. So, it's a catch-22, sell a lot of cars at low margins, or sell few cars at high margins without being ble to recoup your original capital investment fast enough. Add to this, the problem that your models "get old" and have to be changed every 5 years or so, but not having the capital to do so. It's really not a winning combination. I’m not one for internet debates, without knowing the experience or merit of the person who’s debating. While I feel strongly that Apple has demonstrated overcoming parallel constraints in multiple industries and has the financial might to do so in autos, I’m sure you also have the substantial business experience and Apple knowledge to feel as strongly as you do. Time will tell us the outcome.
|
|
|
Post by zzmac on May 23, 2019 12:41:52 GMT -8
ARM Won’t be Supplying Huawei
By Frank Sinatra
And now, the end is near And so It faces the final curtain My friend, I'll say it clear I'll state my case, of which I'm certain It’s lived a life that's full It’s traveled each and every highway And more, much more than this ARM did in Huawei
Regrets, It had a few But then again, too few to mention It did what It had to do And saw it through without exemption It planned each charted course Each careful step along the byway And more, much more than this ARM did in Huawei
Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew When It bit off more than It could chew But through it all, when there was doubt It ate it up and spit it out It faced it all and It stood tall but ARM did in Huawei
It loved, it laughed and cried It had it’s fill, it’s share of losing And now, as tears subside I find it all, all so amusing To think It did all that And may I say, not in a shy way Oh no, no, not thee ARM did in Huawei
For what is phone, what has it got? If not itself, then it has naught To say the things it truly feels And not the words of one who kneels The record shows It took the blows ARM did in Huawei ARM did in Huawei
|
|
walterwhite
Member
"I am the one who knocks!"... Albuquerque, NM
Posts: 346
|
Post by walterwhite on May 23, 2019 13:13:58 GMT -8
Then what is Google? The enabler of almost every one of them. Right, but Google started before this nationalism movement began.
the claim by china-bashers (including Trump and his advisors) is that china has been stealing from the US and others for years and years -- at *least* since it joined WTO in 2001, if not all the way back from early 90's after Tienanmen square... presumably, all this economic lifting of the country went hand-in-hand with some amount of national pride and at least wanting to become a more important world power...
google started copying apple only through acquisition of Android and eric schmidt being on the board of apple... things didn't really heat up until 2009-2010 or so
yes, nationalism rose in china under Xi... but... ...nationalism rose in india under Modi (he just got re-elected btw) ...nationalism rose in russia under Putin ...nationalism rose in turkey under Erdogan ...nationalism rose in the uk leading to Brexit ...nationalism rose across europe with many right-wing or populist parties and candidates... and some presidents... ...nationalism rose in the usa under Trump (make america great again? america first? what's move nationalist than that?)
You said: "By the way, if the Chinese want to show their true nationalism, they shouldn't keep copying Apple products." --> but then "By the way, if the Americans want to show their true nationalism, they shouldn't keep buying products made in China"
...that seems to be trump's goal... except if you ask shoppers at walmart, do most of them care where it was made? it's how cheap it is... Made in America never really worked.
|
|
walterwhite
Member
"I am the one who knocks!"... Albuquerque, NM
Posts: 346
|
Post by walterwhite on May 23, 2019 13:22:23 GMT -8
I’m not one for internet debates, without knowing the experience or merit of the person who’s debating. While I feel strongly that Apple has demonstrated overcoming parallel constraints in multiple industries and has the financial might to do so in autos, I’m sure you also have the substantial business experience and Apple knowledge to feel as strongly as you do. Time will tell us the outcome.
hahaha... wow dude that's below the belt! mark posts a long well-reasoned argument... instead of responding to the argument on merit, you just cave and say 'i don't want to debate on this anonymous forum'... what was the point of posting in the first place then?
anyway... i don't even disagree with you necessarily... would be cool if apple did something with cars...
i just want them as far as possible from the warm turd that is tesla (which is how this debate started)
i'm a never-Trumper and never-Tesler (never-Musker? )
|
|
|
Post by zzmac on May 23, 2019 13:28:58 GMT -8
Yesterday, the BBC got its hands on a leaked memo from British chip designer ARM Holdings telling staff it’s suspending business with Huawei. The move, a direct result of the White House-led trade/tech crackdown on Huawei, is bad news for the embattled company.
In the West’s orbit ARM’s headquartered in the U.K. but has eight offices and over 1,400 employees scattered across the U.S. The company memo said ARM component designs have “U.S. origin technology”—from Texas and California, for example.
What this means: Since ARM doesn’t fall under the U.S.’ 90-day reprieve of some Huawei restrictions, it’s clear the U.S.’ export ban is reverberating across the Atlantic. ARM is in your arm You may not have heard of ARM until today, but its licensed tech is in the smartphones, intelligent sensors, and connected cars all around you.
Think of it like this: ARM is the George R.R. Martin of chips. It's the brainiac that designs the blueprints and writes the instructions for efficient, high-powered microprocessors. Chipmakers then run the capital-intensive foundries that build and install them.
ARM licenses its designs upfront to clients like Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, and Qualcomm and reaps the royalty rewards. It has a stronghold in the mobile processing device space. According to Nikkei, its tech can be found in over 90% of mobile devices. Bad news bears Without ARM’s designs and IP, Huawei can’t build smartphones. Many companies can build chips, but there’s only one GRRM of chip designs (and it’s ARM).
Where we are: This is a bigger deal than the Android ban on Huawei. If ARM’s policy isn’t reversed or revised—a big if, since we all know how fast things move in 2019’s tech cold wars—it could be a death blow to Huawei. The R&D required to replace the foreign chipmakers Huawei relies on would take years...and obscene amounts of money.
|
|
|
Post by longsince98 on May 23, 2019 13:43:20 GMT -8
I’m not one for internet debates, without knowing the experience or merit of the person who’s debating. hahaha... wow dude that's below the belt!
Woah, sorry if it came off like that. I 100% didn’t mean it that way. My intent was to say that I made a point (along with the merit, btw), and heard his point, and would like to leave it at that, bc I’m sure we both have strong reasoning. And I don’t want to take time going back and forth on a forum. Hope that is clearer, and if not 🤷🏻♂️✊🏻✌🏼
|
|