supply

Like the iPhone, Apple stands to make a greater profit on the iPad when consumers choose models with more memory, according to an estimate released by iSuppli on Wednesday.

The $729 version of Apple's iPad is estimated to carry a bill of materials (BOM) and manufacturing cost of $287.15, making it the most profitable iPad model, according to iSuppli. The iPad is expected to go on sale as early as next month.

The firm did not have an iPad in hand when doing its analysis but based the virtual teardown on an in-house cost model that includes commodity components that are used across many devices.

Though the estimate does not account for non-hardware costs, as the price of different models increases, other costs will stay the same, according to Francis Sideco, an analyst at iSuppli. "Regardless of the configuration, software and licensing is going to stay the same. The only thing that's going to change are the hardware costs and primarily the memory," Sideco said in an interview.

That memory-based pricing scheme has become standard practice for Apple when pricing its iPhone and iPod, for example. For the iPad, the 32GB model will be the most profitable, costing only $29.50 more to produce than the 16GB versions, but the retail price gap is $100, iSuppli said. After the display, the NAND flash memory is expected to be the most expensive item. In the mid-range 3G model, the 32GB of NAND accounts for 21.4 percent of the total BOM, iSuppli said. … Read more

Although PlayStation 3 sales have been on the rise and Sony has a rosy outlook for the console's future, it turns out that the company is still losing money on every PlayStation 3 unit it sells.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which examined Sony's fiscal third-quarter financial performance, the company loses 6 cents on "every dollar of PS3 hardware sales." Considering the PlayStation 3 current retails for $300, we can safely assume then, that the company loses about $18 per unit.

Admittedly, losing money on console sales is typical in the gaming industry. But Sony'… Read more

Chip manufacturing equipment is yet another tech sector eyeing a recovery this year, according to projections from market researcher iSuppli.

Global spending on chip manufacturing gear will grow by 46.8 percent over 2009, according to the report released Friday. The growth will follow nearly three down years. This upturn could be good news for the tech industry. Makers of chip manufacturing equipment are often considered the proverbial canary in the coal mine for the rest of tech, because new orders often indicate a growing confidence in consumer or business spending.

The chip industry was hit by a particularly severe … Read more

Since its launch three years ago, Sony's PlayStation 3 has always been more expensive than its rivals, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii, in large part because the components in the PS3 cost so much to assemble.

At launch, for example, the console cost Sony about $805 to build, according to technology research firm iSuppli, with the highest-priced version selling for $599.

But now, a new iSuppli report issued Friday suggests that Sony may finally be nearing the break-even point with the PS3. It said that its teardown analysis service estimated that the design cost of the … Read more

The chip recovery is under way, with quarterly sales forecast to increase year-over-year for the first time in 2009, according to a report from market researcher iSuppli on Tuesday.

Revenue from chip sales is expected to rise by 10.6 percent in the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2008. This would mark the first time this year that revenue has risen compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Dale Ford, senior vice president, market intelligence, for iSuppli.

"The seeds of the current recovery were sown in the second quarter," said Ford. At … Read more

Intel's share of the global CPU market hit a four-year high in the second quarter of 2009, says a report released Monday by market researcher iSuppli.

Thanks to a slight uptick in PC sales, Intel captured 80.6 percent of microprocessor revenue worldwide, growing from 79.1 percent in the first quarter of the year and 79.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008. This is the largest slice of the market Intel's had since its 82.4 percent share in 2005.

The gain in Intel's market share came at the expense of AMD, which saw … Read more

Blu-ray players are becoming a hot item in the living room, but they have yet to attract much attention in the office, according to a new report from iSuppli.

The market research firm found that 3.6 percent of PCs shipped in 2009 will feature Blu-ray players. By 2013, the company expects 16.3 percent of PCs to sport a high-def drive. During that period, DVDs will still reign supreme.

"BDs won't be replacing DVDs as the primary optical drive in PC systems through at least the year 2013," Michael Yang, senior analyst for storage and mobile memory at iSuppli said in a statement. "They eventually will find success, but during the next five years, that success will be limited in the PC segment."

iSuppli believes that Blu-ray's lack of adoption in the PC market is centered on two main factors: a relatively small number of available movies and the cost of adding a Blu-ray drive to PCs. iSuppli said its findings suggest consumers will be more likely to add Blu-ray drives to their PCs once the cost of those drives decreases.

Although the results weren't ideal for the Blu-ray Disc Association, iSuppli said that they're not uncommon. According to the company, new media formats in PCs have enjoyed success only when the cost has decreased to a suitable level. That success also depends on whether or not consumers feel the technology's value proposition is high enough.

iSuppli cited the 3.5-inch floppy's 15-year lifespan as proof that consumers will use media as long as they perceive value. Currently, those same consumers believe there is more value derived from DVD drives.… Read more

Despite its cluttered interface, Inventory Tracker Plus is a powerful and easy-to-use program that should provide businesses with an effective way to track inventory and more.

Inventory Tracker Plus's interface is a bit overwhelming, although continued use reveals a method to the madness. The program uses a lot of windows, opening a new one for each of the program's major functions. Each window contains quite a few fields, but once users take a moment to look at each of them, the program is surprisingly intuitive. Perhaps recognizing the complexity of the interface, the designers included a detailed welcome … Read more

On the back of Intel's better-than-expected financials, an iSuppli analyst said Monday that chip inventories will recover, driving up sales in the second half of the year.

Following positive financial guidance from Intel and other chipmakers, global semiconductor revenue will increase by a sharp 10.4 percent in the third quarter and by 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Carlo Ciriello, a financial analyst for iSuppli.

This expected recovery comes on the heels of four consecutive quarters of chip inventory declines, which took their sharpest dive in the first quarter of this year, plunging by 15.… Read more