Apple and Samsung’s long-time partnership continues to erode as the two companies continue fierce courtroom battles across the globe.
Today, the Korean Times is reporting that Samsung Display will terminate its contract with Apple, citing Apple’s supply-chain management tactics and decreased income (for Samsung) as the reasoning.
For comparison’s sake, during the first 6 months of this year Apple received ~15 million display panels from Samsung alone (with LG providing 12.5 million and Sharp another 2.5 million) whereas this year’s third quarter saw Samsung only supplying about 3 million displays to Apple. Market Research firm, DisplaySearch says they expect that 3 million figure to fall even more in the fourth quarter, down to ~1.5 million.
Regardless if Apple’s cash flow into Samsung was really that low or not, one has to assume that the increasingly hostile relationship between the two over allegations of IP theft and copying each others’ designs had to play a helping hand.
Source: Korean Times
