It’s hip2b2

Earlier this week, the Apple iPhone has caught the world by storm. Definitely another marketing coup from Steve and Co. Now, millions of users around the world are waiting to try out Apple’s latest work of marketing art. Here is a very informative article from InformationWeek on a shopping list of iPhone vendors and providers.

According to a report from FBR Research, the winners are Samsung Electronics (applications/video processor), Marvell (802.11), Infineon Technologies (baseband), Broadcom Corp. (touch screen controller), and Cambridge Silicon Radio (Bluetooth).

FBR believes that Apple has contracted with Taiwan suppliers for 6 million units this year, with an option for another three million units if demand is good. The phone is slated to go on sale in Apple and Cingular Wireless stores in June, with a hefty price tag of $499 (4 GByte) and $599 (8 GByte)—and that apparently already includes the subsidy from Cingular based on a two-year contract.

A report from Macquarie Research noted several Taiwan companies will also benefit, including Foxconn International (assembly), Catcher and Foxconn Tech (stainless casing and mechanical parts) Cheng Uei and Entery (connectors/cable and Bluetooth module), Unimicron and Tripod (PCB), Largan Precision (camera lens) and Altus (camera module).

It is interesting to note that Samsung won the contract for a combined applications and video processor. This probably means that the Apple iPhone will be powered by a integrated Samsung ARM processor. This will, sort of, confirm that this phone’s OS X is definitely not the same as the desktop computer version of OS X. Obviously, the desktop computer OS X is too fat for mobile phone integration and does not have an ARM port. It is probably some embedded operating system. But, if Apple Co wants to release a bath towel and brand it OS X they have all the right to do so.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.