Hardware Supply Issues May Mean Sony Has to Sell the PlayStation 5 At a Loss

[Skiddy]

"With each phone using an average of 12GB of memory they’re not leaving much for the rest of the electronics industry."

12 GB??? An average? Where did you come up with this number?

 

[Famine]

"With each phone using an average of 12GB of memory they’re not leaving much for the rest of the electronics industry."

12 GB??? An average? Where did you come up with this number?

There's about 1.4bn smartphones sold worldwide annually, with around 22% Samsung, 18% Apple, 18% Huawei, 10% OnePlus, and a mix of others - though for 5G phones there's no Apple, only around 19m sold last year, and the share is more or less 35% each Samsung and Huawei. Of the current 5G capable devices from those brands, the memory figures are as follows:

Galaxy S10 5G - 8GB
Huawei Mate 30 Pro - 8GB
OnePlus 7Pro 5G - 12GB
Apple - Nope

That means that the rough makeup of the market is 70% 8GB models, and the mean would be in the order of 8.5GB, with 8GB obviously as the mode.

Of the devices coming to market in 2020 - which are relevant to the PS5's reported struggle to source enough RAM due to 5G smartphones, especially as they'll be on market 6 months before the PS5 will be - the reported specifications are:

Galaxy S20 - 12GB (S20 Ultra 16GB)
Huawei P40 Pro - 12GB
OnePlus 8 - 8GB (Pro 12GB)
Apple - Anybody's guess if they even have one ready

Assuming that 5G phones have a wider proliferation and develop to a market share similar to the general smartphone market (less Apple), that would make roughly 45-50% of 5G smartphones 12GB, with about 10% (about half of Galaxy S20s) 16GB, and around 5% 8GB. The mean there is 12.3GB, and both the mode and median are 12GB, which covers the three commonest meanings of average.

Of course there's a bunch of other phones from other manufacturers that fill in the other third or so of the 5G market, and I have absolutely no idea about them and didn't bother trying to find out for a single line, so it's an estimate only - but broadly speaking, a typical 2020 5G phone will be asking for 12GB of RAM that the PS5 can't have.

 

[Nexus]

Current smartphones use LPDDR4/4X/5 RAM though, whereas the PS5 is supposedly using GDDR6. Not sure if the smartphone market's use of RAM will create a memory shortage for anything else.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Not sure if the smartphone market's use of RAM will create a memory shortage for anything else.

If they are using a different product it should not UNLESS the same manufacturing facilities and lines and possibly if the same raw materials are in short supply are used to produce both products then the output capability for one or both of the products may be affected with fewer units available to the end users.

 

[kikie]

Next article:

Sony Cancels The PS5.

 

[opelgt1969]

Next article:

Sony Cancels The PS5.

And calls it PS Sport!

 

[CleanRacer45]

Microsoft could really sock it to Sony with going even cheaper like they did before. This might get interesting.

 

[GTV0819]

And calls it PS Sport!

People will probably make fun of that name in case it becomes true.

 

[Skiddy]

There's about 1.4bn smartphones sold worldwide annually, with around 22% Samsung, 18% Apple, 18% Huawei, 10% OnePlus, and a mix of others - though for 5G phones there's no Apple, only around 19m sold last year, and the share is more or less 35% each Samsung and Huawei. Of the current 5G capable devices from those brands, the memory figures are as follows:

Galaxy S10 5G - 8GB
Huawei Mate 30 Pro - 8GB
OnePlus 7Pro 5G - 12GB
Apple - Nope

That means that the rough makeup of the market is 70% 8GB models, and the mean would be in the order of 8.5GB, with 8GB obviously as the mode.

Of the devices coming to market in 2020 - which are relevant to the PS5's reported struggle to source enough RAM due to 5G smartphones, especially as they'll be on market 6 months before the PS5 will be - the reported specifications are:

Galaxy S20 - 12GB (S20 Ultra 16GB)
Huawei P40 Pro - 12GB
OnePlus 8 - 8GB (Pro 12GB)
Apple - Anybody's guess if they even have one ready

Assuming that 5G phones have a wider proliferation and develop to a market share similar to the general smartphone market (less Apple), that would make roughly 45-50% of 5G smartphones 12GB, with about 10% (about half of Galaxy S20s) 16GB, and around 5% 8GB. The mean there is 12.3GB, and both the mode and median are 12GB, which covers the three commonest meanings of average.

Of course there's a bunch of other phones from other manufacturers that fill in the other third or so of the 5G market, and I have absolutely no idea about them and didn't bother trying to find out for a single line, so it's an estimate only - but broadly speaking, a typical 2020 5G phone will be asking for 12GB of RAM that the PS5 can't have.

LOL..
so the AVERAGE consumer will have a 12 GB flagship in his/her pocket, in 2020?

Samsung has cca 20% marketshare, but it doesn't mean they are all flagships.
Another thing: IPhone 11 Pro has like 4 GB RAM, I don't think the new model will have anywhere near 12 GB.

And there is a whole bunch of other producers that make up quite a large bit of the 1.4bn smartphones sold, that you didn't mention or include in your 12GB average calculation.

Nice analysis, but nope.

 

[Famine]

so the AVERAGE consumer will have a 12 GB flagship in his/her pocket, in 2020?

Average has three common meanings: mean (total divided by number of items), mode (most common value) and median (value that separates the bottom half of a data set from the top half). I covered this in my post, and given that the article - and the original article from Bloomberg - specifically mentions the demand from 5G smartphones, yes, yes, and yes.

Memory is in demand at the moment, as manufacturers of smartphones are gearing up to a new generation product cycle of their own. The much-vaunted rollout of 5G globally is fueling consumer demand for 5G-capable devices.

Samsung has cca 20% marketshare, but it doesn't mean they are all flagships.
Another thing: IPhone 11 Pro has like 4 GB RAM, I don't think the new model will have anywhere near 12 GB.

Again you'll note that the article - and the original article from Bloomberg - specifically mentions the demand from 5G smartphones. It doesn't make sense to include 4G, 3G and other devices in the calculation; I make reference to the existing total market share in order to come out with an approximate market share for 5G phone once they proliferate from the 18m devices in 2019 to the wider market in 2020, rather than using the 2019 market share of the limited number of 5G devices available as representative alone - Apple has no 5G phone, and is reportedly not coming out with one in the near future either, so can be excluded from the calculate. Something about a dispute over 5G antennae and it trying to develop its own..

And that's the point. The rapid increase in 5G phones, with more memory, in 2020 is causing a supply issue for memory, as suppliers service hundreds of millions of new, memory hungry, 5G phones rather than making enough for ten million games consoles as well.

And there is a whole bunch of other producers that make up quite a large bit of the 1.4bn smartphones sold that you didn't mention

Again, non-5G phones aren't relevant - I only used their current market share to extrapolate a 5G market share once the devices proliferate more widely than the small market and limited number of devices in 2019. And I did mention them, in the last paragraph, which you quoted:

Of course there's a bunch of other phones from other manufacturers that fill in the other third or so of the 5G market.

It seems reasonable to conclude from the most popular 70% of the 2020 5G smartphone market having a mean, median, and mode value of 12GB RAM, that the average 2020 5G smartphone will have an average of roughly 12GB of RAM. I literally showed you my working. If you have a better estimation for a single average figure for the RAM in 2020's 5G smartphone market, please share it.


Just to answer the point about smartphones using different types of RAM compared to PS5s, it's more to do with the suppliers choosing to build RAM for the likely 100m or so 5G phones in 2020 as a priority over the 20m or so PS5s, not what the specifications of the RAM are.

 

[opelgt1969]

Might be a stupid question but could "smart TV's" have any effect. Would the newer 8k TV's need more ram than the 4k ones.