The Biden administration has reportedly engaged in contingency planning over concerns that China might lay siege to Taiwan. One proposed action was to blow up chipmaker TSMC to avoid it falling into Chinese hands. But Taiwan’s security chief says any invasion would render TSMC useless due to the nature of the supply chain:
Even if China got a hold of the golden hen, it won’t be able to lay golden eggs.
Garmin makes dozens of smart watches with minor differences. At the top sits the new 46mm Gen 2 Marq “luxury modern tool.” It’s basically a Forerunner 945 underneath a titanium case, sapphire lens, and touchscreen OLED. If you’ve got the cash, then you need to decide if you identify as a Marq Athlete, Adventurer, Golfer, Captain, or Aviator because these things matter in Garminworld.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX provides a glimpse at how he’ll personally moderate Twitter’s 200+ million users in the future.
Vaskange is an artist that uses the Endless Paper app to create lovely little worlds of “infinite” depth. Here’s just one example.
Ring ring. Hello, who’s there? Feelings.
The chip- and device-making behemoth has released preliminary earnings, and they don’t look great. According to Reuters:
Third-quarter profit could tumble 25 percent, the first year-on-year decline in nearly three years, as an economic downturn saps demand for electronic devices and the chips that power them.
Samsung’s chip earnings are estimated to fall 32 percent while its mobile business profit could drop by 17 percent this quarter.
Google is placing its largest-ever launch order for a new Pixel. Eight million units, according to Nikkei, in line with Google’s plan to roughly double its smartphone sales in 2023.
The Pixel sells best in the US, Japan, and UK, but even at home holds just a 2.6 percent share of the smartphone market. IDC says Google sold 27.6 million units since the Pixel launched in 2016. Compare that to Apple, which sold over 235.7 million iPhones in 2021 alone.
[Nikkei Asia]
India seems increasingly destined to become the next factory for the world. Soon it will start shipping the iPhone 14 to Europe, and now some AirPods and Beats headphones are headed to India as well, according to Nikkei’s sources.
iPhone assembler Foxconn is preparing to make Beats headphones in the country, and hopes to eventually produce AirPods there as well.
AirPods are second only to the iPhone in terms of shipment volume for Apple. AirPods are manufactured in Vietnam and China, with the majority of Beats produced in Vietnam.
According to Bloomberg, India’s effort to become another factory to the world is succeeding with help from the Apple / Foxconn juggernaut. By March 2023, annual shipments of India-made iPhones, mainly to Europe and the Middle East, are set to reach $2.5 billion, almost double the $1.3 billion from the year prior.
Still, only about 3 million iPhones were made in the country last year, compared to 230 million in China. Analysts say it would take about eight years to move just 10 percent of Apple’s production capacity out of China.