华尔街日报日前发文披露苹果与闪存供应商多年谈判中的细节：供应商代表要准备食物应对深夜谈判；当芯片价格下跌时苹果有时候甚至拒绝此前已经订购的产品，迫使供应商承担库存或继续降价。
故意虐待供应商代表？
报道称苹果与供应商的谈判常常持续到午夜之后，中间也不安排晚饭和休息时间。为应对漫长的谈判会议，有些供应商代表会随身携带营养棒应对长时间无法进食带来的身体问题。
苹果还会要求供应商给予最惠客户待遇，确保其他企业无法从供应商这里获得比苹果更低的供应价格，苹果还需要审查供应商的财务资料了解供应商的销售和生产情况等。
这里有个案例：苹果曾发现美光向其他客户提供更低的闪存价格，这引起苹果的不满。为此苹果威胁美光并进行仲裁，最终美光向Apple Pay数千万美元的补偿进行和解。
还有个案例是日本闪存供应商铠侠：铠侠高管斯科特尼尔森曾在美国南加州沙漠骑行中停下来，拿步枪打碎自己的旧 iPod 并将碎片留在办公桌上，自己则尝试使用Android手机表达抗议。
闪存行业亏损时苹果存储升级赚取可观毛利：
2023 年开始，疫情期间居家办公带来的设备采购热潮褪去，当时闪存价格跌到每 GB 约 5 美分。有研究机构估算，当年整个闪存行业经营亏损约为 190 亿美元，而苹果销售额外的存储空间获得的毛利约为 140 亿美元。
苹果的存储升级价格长期高于增加闪存所需的成本，以去年推出的 iPhone 17 Pro 为例，美国用户从 256GB 版升级到 512GB 版需要多支付 200 美元，而苹果当时增加这 256GB 闪存的成本大约是 15 美元。
当前供应商议价能力显著增强：
局面发生变化的关键是大型科技公司正在为 AI 基础设施采购大量的存储设备，数据中心需要闪存来保存模型、训练数据和应用数据，这让闪存供应商有规模更大和更愿意签署长期合同的客户。
分析师估计，两年前苹果采购的 NAND 闪存数量大约是微软、亚马逊、Meta 和Google四家公司合计采购量的两倍，而现在这四家公司的合计采购量已经变成苹果的两倍多。
Meta、微软和亚马逊已经与铠侠签订长期供应协议并接受更高的价格，这类合同帮助铠侠锁定订单和收入，也让铠侠在与苹果谈判时拥有更多选择，不过苹果的采购规模仍然是行业首屈一指的大客户。
本文由 AI图鉴自动抓取并翻译，版权归原作者所有；如需查看原文请点下方链接。
The details of the many years of negotiations between apples and flash suppliers were disclosed in a recent letter from the Wall Street Journal: suppliers ' representatives were to prepare food for late-night negotiations; apples sometimes refused even previously ordered products when the chip price fell, forcing suppliers to bear stocks or continue to reduce prices.
Deliberate abuse of supplier representatives?
It was reported that negotiations between apples and suppliers often continued after midnight, with no provision for dinner and rest. In response to long negotiating sessions, some supplier representatives have been carrying nutritional sticks to deal with the physical problems associated with chronic lack of food.
Apples also require that suppliers treat their customers most favourably to ensure that other enterprises do not obtain lower supply prices than apples from suppliers, and that they review suppliers ' financial information about their sales and production.
Here's a case in point: Apple found that Mei-ray offered other customers lower flash prices, which caused apple dissatisfaction. For this, apples threaten beauty and arbitrate, and eventually they reconcile with Apple Pay's tens of millions of dollars in compensation.
Another case is that of Japan’s flash supplier, the Queen Scott Nelson, who stopped at a desert ride in Southern California, broke his old iPod with a rifle and left debris on his desk, and tried to use Android’s phone to protest.
Apple storage upgrades in flash trade losses have generated significant amounts of money:
Starting in 2023, the hot tide of procurement of equipment brought about by home-based offices during the epidemic fell to about 5 cents per GB. Research institutions estimate that the entire flash industry lost approximately $19 billion in operating losses in the year, while apple sales generated about $14 billion in Maori.
The price of apple storage upgrades has long been higher than the cost of increasing flashages, as in the case of the iPhone 17 Pro that was launched last year, US users need to pay $200 more for upgrading from 256 to 512GB, while the cost of apples increasing this 256-GB flash is about $15.
Current vendor bargaining capacity has increased significantly:
The key to this change is that large technology companies are purchasing large quantities of storage equipment for AI infrastructure, and data centres need flash memory to preserve models, training data and application data, which allows flash suppliers to have larger and more willing clients to sign long-term contracts.
Analysts estimate that two years ago the number of NAND flash stocks purchased for apples was approximately twice the total of Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google companies, which have now become more than twice as large as apples.
Meta, Microsoft and Amazon have entered into long-term supply agreements with the Zhang Man and accept higher prices. Such contracts help the Zhang to lock down orders and revenues, and give the Zingman more options to negotiate with apples, although their purchase remains the largest customer in the industry.
Auto-fetched and translated by AI Atlas. All rights belong to the original author.