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Technology Stocks : Cymer (CYMI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pass pass who wrote (12140)	12/30/1997 7:16:00 PM
From: Gary Hoyer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25960

Actually, pass pass, it appears the Koreans did spend unwisely. Just look back several years. The Korean's weren't a power in anything. Before the long slowdown in Japan occured they saw Japan as their model of prosperity - become a technical/industrial powerhouse. In my opinion, the fundamental problem is that Korea wanted to BUY its way into the 21st century by entering supposed "growth" markets and gaining market share by undercutting everyone. By doing cooperative deals with the Japanese, the Koreans gained the technology and knowhow they needed and abruptly entered every damn field they could think of. Problem is, most of these growth markets had already peaked. I remember when the VCR market had saturated that suddenly along came new VCRs from the likes of Goldstar and Samsung. They weren't very good but they were priced cheap - an attempt to come out of nowhere and enter a market and gain market share. They did this with consumer electronics, cars, and ultimately with computers and semiconductors. Their entry into the DRAM market was particularly ill-timed. Of course it occurred at the PEAK of the DRAM shortage when it looked like you could make gazillions selling memory chips. In response, they spent billions building new DRAM fabs. I remember reading during the shortage when DRAM was traded like gold that supply would finally meet demand and prices would fall when ALL THOSE NEW KOREAN FABS CAME ONLINE BY 97. Well, here we are, the Korean's gained their market share but built so much capacity that prices have tanked beyond belief. Whoa, this is getting long. Let me sum up. This isn't meant as a slam on Korea, in fact they finally appear to be building some world-class stuff instead of just being inferior copiers. The Samsung SyncMaster 21" monitor is a good example. The Koreans and the world now see how expensive it is to buy your way into markets. They will not give up that hard fought market share easily, but if they're forced to, believe me others will be there to pick it up. To relate all this to the topic at hand, if Korea can't afford to upgrade to Cymer based DUV tools in 98 and 99 then, provided the world-wide chip demand is there, the tools will go to the countries and companies picking up Korea's market share. Some end of year thoughts, Gary.