Michal Ždanský Relations between Apple and Samsung are becoming more and more strained. All the US patent disputes culminated in one of the biggest IT court cases of the last decade, and Apple he walked away victorious. Until then, however, there was still a friendly-enemy relationship between the companies, mainly thanks to the supply of components. Samsung is still the largest supplier of components for the apple company, especially in the area of memories, displays and chipsets.
As far as chipsets are concerned, Apple is probably already looking for another supplier. After all, its dependence on Korean companies reduced the Apple A6 chipset with its own design. Displays are next in line, but this time Samsung wants to stop deliveries, not Apple. On Monday, it announced that it will end the contract for the supply of LCD displays starting in 2013, in full. The newspaper brought the news The Korea Times. The reason, according to an unnamed high-ranking person in the Korean company, should be the significant discounts demanded by Apple, which were already unbearable for Samsung.
Samsung has been the largest supplier of LCD displays until now, and Apple bought over 15 million units from it in the first half of last year alone. Other suppliers are LG, which supplied the American company with 12,5 million displays during the same period, and Sharp with 2,8 million displays in the first six months of last year. The latter companies will probably profit from the change. It should be noted, however, that in the second half of 2012 the Koreans delivered only 4,5 million, of which only 1,5 million in the last quarter. Samsung should now supply its displays to Amazon for the production of Kindle Fire tablets, thus filling the big hole that will be left after the end of the contract with Apple.
A day later, Samsung officially denied this entire claim in its announcement server CNET. According to the Korean company, the report is completely false and "Samsung Display never sought to cut off Apple's LCD panel supply". The newspaper received the information The Korea Times from an anonymous source, which is according to The Verge common practice in Korea for messages destined outside the country. Thus, Samsung is likely to remain one of the main suppliers of displays. And although the Koreans supply the Retina displays for the current generation iPad, the LCD panels for the smaller iPad, which is expected to be unveiled today, are expected to be made by the companies LG a AU Optronics. However, we will know for sure when iFixit.com he drops the tablet into the dissection.
Wow, that Samsung factory roughly resembles the Tyrell corporation headquarters from Blade Runner. :-)