BlockBeats News, July 24th, a summary of key pre-market news:

1. NVIDIA has notified its board partners of a price increase, which involves GDDR6 and GDDR7 memory kits. It is reported that when NVIDIA sells products to board partners, the GPU chip and VRAM (memory) chip are packaged together into kits for supply, and the partners are responsible for installing these chips on their own designed PCBs (printed circuit boards) to produce custom graphics cards.

2. Due to the continued rise in memory chip prices driving up the overall cost of iPhones, Apple is pressuring its upstream supply chain, demanding a significant reduction in OLED screen prices from its display panel suppliers.

3. Intel announced after the market close on Thursday that its revenue for the second quarter of 2026 exceeded analysts' expectations by nearly 12%, with a quarter-on-quarter revenue growth rate accelerating to 25%, the strongest quarterly revenue growth rate in nearly fifteen years. The revenue from its data center-related businesses is expected to grow by nearly 60% year-on-year, more than twice the overall revenue growth rate. Intel's revenue guidance for the third quarter maintains double-digit growth, with the guidance range indicating a year-on-year growth of over 15% to nearly 23%, all of which are higher than analysts' expectations. Based on the mid-point of the range, Intel expects third-quarter revenue to be around $16.3 billion, more than 8% higher than market expectations, and slightly higher than actual revenue for the second quarter.

4. Kim Yong-beom, head of the South Korean presidential office's policy office, stated that during South Korean President Lee Jae-myung's visit to Silicon Valley, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will sign significant agreements with major U.S. tech companies involving "huge" amounts of money. These agreements may include new long-term memory chip supply agreements, strategic cooperative investment partnerships, and memoranda of understanding. He did not specify the amounts.

5. The long-running "century divorce case" between South Korea's SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and his ex-wife Roh So-young (daughter of former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo) has received a recent judgment. The court has finally ruled that Chey Tae-won must pay his ex-wife 944 billion Korean won (approximately $644 million / 4.37 billion RMB) as a cash asset split. The market generally expects that this ruling will have a limited substantive impact on SK Hynix's stock price.

6. The three storage giants, SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics, and Kioxia, will announce their earnings next week. SK Hynix is set to release its second-quarter financial results on Wednesday, July 29th. Visible ALPHA's consensus expectations indicate that SK Hynix is expected to once again deliver an outstanding quarterly performance.

Samsung Electronics will officially announce the full second-quarter earnings report on Thursday, July 30. Previously, on July 7, Samsung released preliminary performance data. The second-quarter revenue increased by 129% year-on-year, reaching 171 trillion Korean won (about $116.6 billion); the operating profit for the same period was 89.4 trillion Korean won (about $58.4 billion), a whopping 18-fold increase year-on-year, setting a new all-time quarterly record.

Iron Man will release the first-quarter earnings report for the 2027 fiscal year on Friday, July 31, with market expectations that its quarterly profit is expected to double compared to the previous quarter.

7. Oracle wins a $7 billion U.S. Department of Defense software contract, causing a pre-market surge of nearly 2%.

8. Amazon updates the Alexa+ feature, further enhancing its next-generation AI assistant capabilities. Alexa+ supports natural conversations, information retention, and task execution, helping users manage schedules, summarize emails, generate podcasts, control smart homes, and complete daily tasks such as shopping, restaurant reservations, and ride-hailing.

9. NVIDIA has signed a $1.5 billion agreement with Amkor Technology (AMKR) to support the latter in enhancing chip packaging facilities and expanding its semiconductor industry presence in the United States. The agreement involves an upfront payment that will help Amkor enhance its manufacturing capabilities in Arizona. The two companies stated that this collaboration will focus on chip packaging and testing technology in the field of artificial intelligence.