[seemaze]

Explain how this works when their phones only capture roughly 20% market share, and their computers only 10%. That is to say nothing of the demand for server memory.

It seems like they only represent a fraction of the demand side, but wield an outsized influence over supply?

[jdw64]

In the commodity raw materials market, marginal price determination is highly volatile. Usually, even if total market supply exceeds demand by just 5% to 10%, prices crash dramatically. In the end, the 10–20% that Apple holds is the casting vote. Why do you think swing states are so important in elections?

[ksec]

> Explain....

They are the largest customer. You don't annoy you largest customer. DRAM manufacture don't care whether the RAM are for Laptop or Phone. And Samsung + Apple combined is nearly 50% of the phone market. The rest are split up between many Chinese companies.

It may be surprising to some having a short / long term contract of DRAM may actually be more expensive than spot price of DRAM. Smaller manufacture likes to take advantage of spot price, since their shipment are usually volatile. Compare to Apple which has been shipping their products and selling them like clock work. Hence Apple will need these contract signed to have guarantee of supply.

And when you are the largest customer for all three DRAM manufactures, they get to play the game better than anyone else.

[wmf]

For example, if iPhone unit share is 20% but it has double the RAM compared to cheap phones that's ~40% byte share.

[seemaze]

What is Apples share across all memory delivered? How does that compare with the 40% of wafers locked up by OpenAI?

I don’t know the answer to either. On the surface I would estimate Apple a large, but not majority consumer overall.