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Samsung Teams Up with Tech Titans for Arm’s IPO Amid Valuation Shuffle
A new report reveals that Samsung will participate as an anchor investor for Arm’s upcoming IPO after taking a conservative approach to the matter due to a perceived overvaluation and regulatory risk.
Samsung opted to make an investment in the chip designer, joining a slew of other industry players including Apple, Nvidia and Intel. Amazon, which was earlier rumored to be participating in the IPO, decided to step out.
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It’s worth mentioning that the strategic investors have agreed to invest between $25 million and $100 million each. The specific amount for each company hasn’t been disclosed yet.
This means the offering price will come in between $47 and $51 per share. It makes Arm’s valuation between $50 billion and $55 billion, down from the initial estimation of $64 billion.
Arm’s IPO on Nasdaq, which is expected in September, is considered to be the biggest IPO deal of the year. The company controls a majority of the world’s application processor market, designing and licensing basic blueprints for chips.
In Q3 2023, Samsung and Apple’s market share slightly declined, while an underdog Chinese phone brand appeared on the top 5 chart. In a recent development, Canalys published market research data for the third quarter, revealing Tanssion as the fifth best-seller globally.
According to the info, Samsung and Apple lead total sales with 20% and 17% market share, yet both have fallen from their 22% and 18% levels in 2022. However, Tanssion, the maker of Tecno, Itel, and Infinix phones, climbed from 6% global market share last year to 9% in 2023, a 50% jump.
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Apart from this, Xiaomi matched last year’s share only by “recovering” from a terrible first half of 2023. At the same time, OPPO has fallen steadily over the past two years, while fellow BBK brand vivo lost the top-5 slot it’s owned for years.
Overall, the global smartphone market underwent a slight drop of 1% in Q3 2023. Bolstered by regional recoveries and new product upgrade demand, the smartphone market recorded a double-digit sequential growth in Q3, ahead of the sales seasons.
Recently, research agency Counterpoint Research published their latest analysis. The report reveals that Samsung continued its leadership in the third quarter of 2023, while Apple remained in the second spot. However, both OEMs faced a decline of 1 percent year over year.
According to CR, slower consumer demand is the main factor in the dwindling sales. The market did see a slight 2 percent growth in Q3 compared to Q2, likely driven by last month’s iPhone 15 series launch. Samsung secured 20 percent market share, while Apple grabbed 16 percent sales.
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The Galaxy A-series was the key driver for the South Korean smartphone maker. Apple came in second with 16 percent of the market while Xiaomi rounded out the top three with its 12 percent share. Oppo (10 percent) and vivo (8 percent) were the remaining brands in the top five charts.
The newly released iPhone 15 series will help Apple score a lead over Samsung in the fourth quarter of the year. The results will arrive by early next year, and it’s expected that the US phone maker could surpass Samsung. Major camera upgrades and USB-C helped Apple register strong sales.
Market research firm TrendForce published the latest report on their analysis. The agency disclosed that after global smartphone production dropped by nearly 20% year-on-year in the first quarter, production continued to decline by about 6.6% in the second quarter, to 270 million units.
In particular, the global smartphone production in the first half of 2023 was 520 million units, a 13.3% decline compared to the same period last year. Both individual quarters and the first half of the year in total set a ten-year low.
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TrendForce analysts pointed out that there are three reasons for the sluggish production performance:
- First, the lifting of epidemic prevention restrictions did not drive demand as expected;
- Secondly, the demographic dividend effect of the emerging Indian market has not effectively exerted its advantages;
- Thirdly, in 2022, brands will be deeply affected by excessive channel inventory. It was originally expected that as inventory is reduced, brands will return to production levels.
However, now affected by economic weakness, people’s consumption willingness is more conservative, resulting in poor production performance in the first half of the year. expected.
Second Quarter Market
In the second quarter, Samsung still topped the list, with Q2 output reaching 53.9 million units, a decrease of 12.4% from the previous quarter. The same period coincided with the replacement of old and new Apple models, with output of 42 million units, a decrease of 21.2% from the previous quarter.
Adding to this, the most obvious change in the smartphone market was Transsion (including TECNO, Infinix, and itel). Transsion surpassed vivo and entered fifth place in the world for the first time. Its output increased by more than 70% month-on-month to 25.1 million units.
Production
In addition to Samsung and Apple, Xiaomi (including Xiaomi, Redmi, and POCO) produced approximately 35 million units in the second quarter, an increase of 32.1% from the previous quarter.
OPPO (realme, and OnePlus included) produced about 33.6 million units in the second quarter, an increase of 25.4% from the previous quarter. Q3 is expected to have a growth rate of about 10-15%, closely following Xiaomi.