Make of this what you will, but tucked in the report
on the future of the memory chips industry for mobile phones by the GF
Securities brokerage, are some eye-watering revelations about the flagship
phones we can expect next quarter, including the Galaxy S10 and S10+.
China has been poaching star investment brokers from
Taiwan for a while now, with the most notorious case being the famed Apple
analyst Ming-Chi Kuo moving from KGI to TF Securities in China. GF Securities,
however, also attracted a famous Apple supply chain reader on staff, Jeff Pu,
so when GF sends a memo to clients, it rings rather credible.
The memo in question includes a table that depicts
the evolution of RAM amounts in popular flagships from this season and the near
future. In it, not only do we learn that there might be top-shelf phones with
12GB RAM models next year, but that those could be of the Galaxy S10 and Huawei
P30 series.
Yes, series, as the table depicts no less than three
Galaxy S10 models plus a 5G version, just as rumored, called (perhaps as a
placeholder) Galaxy S10, S10+, S10 X, and S10 X 5G. That same 5G model is
listed with 12GB RAM, but the S10 X is no slouch with its purported 10 gigs,
either. Xiaomi just announced a 10 GB RAM phone, the Mi Mix 3 "Forbidden
City" Special Edition, but Samsung and Huawei (with an eventual P30 Pro)
will apparently be pushing the RAM envelope further.
Now, the basic S10 may evidently have
"just" 4GB RAM, while the S10+ could come with 6GB. Just the top
models of the world's first and third-largest phone makers are listed with as
much RAM, and one of those units has 5G in the title, so perhaps manufacturers
will be going all-out on their 5G models only, to justify their inevitably
higher prices. All in all, the year 2019 is shaping up to be one of the most
exciting for the universe of mobile phones in recent memory.
