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Friday, October 16, 2026

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@convequity

Convequity on X

The AI memory squeeze is hitting Android chip suppliers harder than the phone market. Counterpoint says global smartphone shipments fell 20% in the third quarter from a year earlier, the lowest third quarter since 2012. AI data centres are taking more of the memory supply, and higher DRAM and NAND prices left most phone makers short. 1. The fall is in cheaper phones. Xiaomi's shipments fell more than 30%, and OPPO's and vivo's more than 20%, as they cut low-priced models and raised prices. Samsung's fell 3%, and Apple ($AAPL) reached a 22% share, its first third quarter above 20%. 2. Chip suppliers fell further than phone makers. In the second quarter, phone shipments fell 21%, while MediaTek's and Qualcomm's ($QCOM) phone chip shipments each fell more than 30%, per Counterpoint. 3. Qualcomm is exposed too. Counterpoint ties MediaTek's decline to its entry-level and mainstream chips, and Qualcomm's to its Snapdragon 600 and 400 lines. Qualcomm also lost some premium volume as Samsung used its own Exynos 2600 chip in base Galaxy S26 models in some regions. Samsung's Exynos shipments rose in the second quarter. The phone maker that held up best is making more of its own chips. The third-quarter phone data shows the same pattern, so I expect MediaTek's and Qualcomm's phone chip volumes to fall faster than phone shipments again when they report the quarter.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

What oversupply? Even in the lower end ranges that they're focusing on, Chinese pluggable makers like Innolight are still bottlenecked for 70-100mW ranges from ECOC channel checks. Cambridge wouldn't be going out financing suppliers with convertible loans for scarce laser capacity. Suppliers wouldn't be raising ASPs if there was overcapacity. Also not all CW lasers are the same. China is a ways away from from scaling UHP lasers needed for CPO, which is why there's still premiums given to $LITE, $COHR, $SIVE. $LITE lasers are sold out into 2029 and they're starting negotiations into 2030. I don't think anyone genuinely believes that China will flood the laser markets medium term, even both $LITE / $AAOI CEO said there was a difference between comments made and what they're actually seeing. From AOI on China: "of them, they are working maybe 70 mW or very few can really do 100 mW. For 300 mW laser, especially DWDM spec, we don't see that." "Not in the next two, three years, especially the demand is so big. Okay? Even combined AOI, Lumentum, Coherent, Broadcom all together, it's still very tough to meet the customer demand in the next few years" From Lumentum last month: "At least at the moment, we see no impact from any Chinese laser supply." But whenever markets want a correction people just blindly point to China with memory or optics while ignoring what's actually occurring with demand imbalances + LTAs spanning many years and constantly extending.

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