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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kirk © who wrote (1396)	6/12/2014 12:29:12 PM
From: Jerome	Respond to of 26581

Hi Kirk, is the business sustainable Very much so.... recent articles indicate that Apple will be introducing four products with sapphire screens. Its been estimated that GTAT will use between 80 to 90% of their capacity to supply Apple, with the rest available to other customers. Other customers would be LED manufactures. There is only one other sapphire supplier in the US (that I know of) and that is Rubicon (RBCN) This is a very specialized market, that does not lend itself to off the shelf components that can be made by competitors. Apple supplied the building in Arizona and about $700 millions of dollars for GTAT to build the tools needed to make the sapphire. Everything I have read about this says that GTAT is in a long term relationship with Apple. If you go to GTAT home page (http://www.gtat.com/ ) you may learn that GTAT has got some new products for LED manufactures, and for solar panel producers. Apple might have acquired some sapphire from China, but that could result in the possible loss of trade secrets and future plans that Apple would like to not disclose. GTAT by being right on the Apple manufacturing campus helps GTAT expand tremendously, while giving Apple a secure supply of sapphire that is unavailable to competitors. Even without the Apple deal, GTAT was headed in the right direction. The Apple deal just put GTAT products on steroids.