“Apple just can’t seem to shake Samsung,” Brooke Crothers reports for CNET. “Despite the two companies’ bitter legal battles, Samsung became the largest supplier of iPad displays in the first quarter, according to DisplaySearch.”
“The market researcher said Samsung Display reclaimed its position as the top iPad display panel supplier, shipping 5.2 million units of 9.7-inch panels with a resolution of 2,048×1,536, accounting for 62 percent of total shipments of that display size and resolution,” Crothers reports. “The displays with those specifications are used by Apple for the iPad Air and iPad with Retina display.”
Crothers reports, “LG Display, also a major display supplier to Apple, saw its share of that display size/resolution plunge to 38 percent in the first quarter from about 61 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Symbiotic dichotomy.
I wonder why LG fails to meet demand? Those displays must be more difficult to manufacture than many assume.
Because samsung constantly undermines them with blatant corporate espionage and theft.
Go read the Vanity Fair article regarding price fixing. Crime pays for these turds.
Politics and a great deal of money indeed make strange bed fellows.
I loathe Samsung for its unoriginality, its corporate culture of theft, deception and reliance on the slow march of judicial action, and its complete lack of taste. It never saw an idea it wouldn’t package as its own, and it is really bad at elegant software. I mean, terribly awfully piss poor.
BUT……
They can manufacture. And if no other company in the world — Apple with its billions upon billions of lifeless profits included — can’t make chips and displays as quickly, reliably or cheaply, then maybe I should just shut the #^@& up and live with it. After this many years of knowing they are scum yet needing them to meet build quotas, apparently Samsung is a necessary part of the world economy.
Frustrating.
It is absolutely true. Unfortunately.
This is because Apple is NOT trying to “shake” Samsung as a supplier. Apple wisely treats Samsung, the components supplier, as a separate entity from Samsung, the competitor. There is no choice. If Apple intentionally avoids using Samsung as a supplier, Apple hurts itself just as much (if not more) than Samsung.
If Samsung offers the best combination of price and volume, Apple MUST buy from Samsung. IF Apple offers the best combination of price and volume, Samsung must sell to Apple. Not doing so means Apple would need to pay MORE for the same components, to get it elsewhere, negating one of the key advantages Apple has over its competition. And it may not even be possible for Apple to get the required volume elsewhere, for any price. And it means Samsung would have excess production capacity, so Samsung makes less profit being a supplier. Neither party wants that situation.
Apple can certainly expand its list of suppliers, but thinking that Apple can simply stop buying components from Samsung is naive… People who think that way are NOT looking at the “big picture.”
You can be damn sure Apple is working with other component makers to replace Samsung.
But until those can meet the volume, quality and price requirements, Samsung will still get business.
Samsung is very adept at learning new methods and applying them faster than their competitors.
My bet is that Apple are working with other companies on more advanced components that will be in products a year or so away. That way they get the skill set up to scratch and the volume where they need. As a result Apple will not let Samsung gain experience with new techniques.
Also remember Samsung probably have to accept low margins for the component business with Apple due to the volume. Apple on the other hand has large margins on the finished product. Sure Samsung get some revenue but Apple gets the profits.