Comment by mrandish

The point of my GP post was that due to being one of the world's biggest and longest-term buyers, Apple is already paying very close to actual manufacturing costs + amortized capex because RAM is an undifferentiated commodity. Owning the factory themselves doesn't reduce the actual manufacturing cost + amortized capex that Apple would have to pay their own factory. Apple is already buying RAM at the lowest possible margins. It's similar math to deciding whether to spend your own cash or get a loan. If the loan's interest rate is low enough, it's better take the loan and put your cash to work where it can return a higher margin. And at the incredibly low margins Apple pays for RAM, keeping that cash in long-term investments will actually earn more money than putting it into building RAM factories.

If Apple could go back in time 3.5 years and decide to build their own factory, that would put them in a great position today. But deciding to do it now won't increase their supply 3.5 years from now more than just increasing their long-term orders with existing suppliers. Those suppliers will start building new factories based on Apple's increased orders and they'll do it faster and cheaper than Apple can because they don't have to build some factories in the U.S. for political reasons or worry as much about environmental regulation, permitting and ensuring Apple employees in Penang get benefits similar to employees in Cupertino.