3G iPhone’s Top Five Component Beneficiaries

The 3G iPhone is out. Besides Apple (AAPL) , who else is a beneficiary of this major PR event? Here, we look at the top five component vendors: Infineon, Triquint, Samsung, Broadcom and Interdigital.

The teardown analysis shows that Infineon (IFX) and TriQuint Semiconductor (TQNT) are the two biggest winners.

TriQuint has three Power Amps and Infineon has the Digital Baseband Processor, a UMTS Transceiver, a Power Management and a GPS chip - an amazing total of four sockets.

Let’s look at the two stocks:

We will be writing a lot more on Infineon and will also start tracking TriQuint. Meanwhile, you can read up on Vijay Nagarajan’s analysis of Infineon.

In addition, Samsung still has the Application Processor and Broadcom (BRCM) has the Touchscreen Controller. Samsung will likely eventually lose this socket, but for now it remains a key beneficiary of the 3G iPhone. Intel (INTC) is after this socket with its Atom chip, as are others.

I pegged Broadcom as a bargain back in March, and since then the stock has risen quite a bit. My guess is that  it will move further up as functionality starts to consolidate from the board to the chip.

The final company on our list is not a direct component supplier to Apple, but rather one that most likely reaps royalties due to its Intellectual Property position: InterDigital (IDCC). The company did an IP licensing deal with Apple last year, but otherwise, not much detail is available. Its earnings announcement is coming up in early August, and we will have to wait till then to see what is the impact of the 3G iPhone on the company.

In addition, Marvell (MRVL) , CSR, National Semiconductor (NSM), STMicroelectronics (STM), Numonyx, NXP, and SkyWorks (SWKS) have design wins into the 3G iPhone.

Disclosure: None

Comments

[FTC]

Marvell has more dollar content than Broadcom does. It's wireless networking chip is about 4 dollars while Broadcoms touchscreen controller is about 1.50. Don't be influenced by the Broadcom bulls who were giving Broadcom the gps design win when it was Infoneons all along. Why does Marvell get treated like ares headed stepchild?

[bike 05673]

Finally glad to hear you are going to do more coverage on Triquint. I have followed TQNT for quite a longtime and felt that for some reasons the analyst community has not been showing any confidence in the positive direction TQNT has been going in the last few years. Cash flow has really been improving the balance sheet has been pristine. The research side has really been improved they have had plenty of wins improved revenue and grown margins. If you have listened to the CC or attended the analysts days Mgmt. has been very bullish and gave a clear picture of growth. I understand there has been push backs but in general the company has had many positive things going on the last few years and I think one could have clearly seen a positive direction. I have been dissapointed in the lack of more positive coverage and think that the price of the stock with all this positive direction has been to cheap. Right now based on everything we know and every thing the company says I think it is a strong buy.

[mollytjm]

I'm glad to see this article. thank you.

[Kris Tuttle]

You have to look at $ content and how it relates to GM contributions. Sockets don't help if the subject companies don't make money on the business. A useful analysis would include $ per component, likely total costs and then what the gm impact might be on the suppliers in question.

[User 192127]

Interdigital reports their earnings 3 months later than most companies, due to the reporting nature of their licensees. In other words the 2nd qtr results are actually the results of the 1st qtr royalty payments.

So we won't see the beginning of the effect of the I-phone on Interdigitals earnings until the 3rd qtr results are made public

[xwas]

This post has no content other than a cut and paste from a Semiconductor Insights report. Tell me something I don't know.