Plus: Super Micro Computer clears senior management in alleged smuggling scheme. And the global foldable smartphone market is rebounding. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:01] Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, August 20. I'm Nicole Nguyen for The Wall Street Journal. Shares of SpaceX fell after CEO Elon Musk said a big rocket operation was still months away. The company has been preparing for another test flight of its rocket Starship. SpaceX aims to make both the booster and spacecraft reusable. It already showed it can catch the booster with a launch tower at its complex in Texas for reuse.
[00:00:28] During an earnings call earlier this month, Musk said the company planned to catch the spacecraft as soon as its next flight. But in a social media post today, he said that that would now likely take place in a few months, and the next Starship mission hasn't been publicly scheduled yet. The stock closed down about 4%. Super Micro Computer has cleared senior management in an alleged smuggling scheme.
[00:00:52] Earlier this year, two employees and a contractor were said to have smuggled high-end NVIDIA chips to China, resulting in a Supermicro co-founder resigning from the company, as well as an employee being put on leave and the firing of a contractor. The server maker today said its board found no evidence that any current member of the senior management was aware of the alleged scheme or of any actual diversion of restricted products. Supermicro says it has taken steps to strengthen its export compliance programs.
[00:01:23] And the global foldable smartphone market is rebounding, according to research firm Omdia. It says shipments are expected to reach 36 million units by 2028, more than double last year's volume. Omdia says growth exceeding 20% annually is being driven by a new wide-format book-type design, available in models from Huawei and Samsung, with more Android brands set to follow next year.
[00:01:49] But high component costs will keep foldables a premium niche. Omdia expects foldable smartphones to capture less than 3% of the total smartphone market by 2030. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out tomorrow's Tech News Briefing podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, check out our next video. Don't forget to let it guess. Thank you.