Over the weekend, Mark Gurman at Bloomberg reported that Apple has apparently built out a microLED display laboratory in California for testing and manufacturing small batches of the next-generation screen technology, presumably for its iPhone and other devices. Apple had previously acquired microLED startup LuxVue in 2014.
The news of a secret research lab fits into a larger narrative about Apple’s deeper and more expensive focus on research and development. Neil Cybart of Above Avalon, a subscription blog focused on Apple, noted that Apple “is on track to spend $14 billion on R&D in FY2018, nearly double the amount spent on R&D just four years ago” and also pointed out that “The $14 billion of R&D expense that Apple will spend in FY2018 will be more than the amount Apple spent on R&D from 1998 to 2011.”
Those are incredible numbers for any company, but the scale of the R&D output even for Apple is exceptional. Even more notably, Apple’s R&D expenses as a percentage of revenue have been steadily increasing over the past few years and are projected to reach a decade high of 5.3% this year despite higher revenues, according to Cybart.
That …read more
Source:: TechCrunch Gadgets
Previous post
Next post