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Samsung Terminates LCD Contract With Apple
An anonymous reader writes "Samsung has decided to terminate an ongoing contract with Apple to supply LCD panels for use in its growing range of devices. That means, come next year, there will be no Samsung panels used across the iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Mac range of devices. The reason seems to be two-fold. On the one hand, Apple has been working hard to secure supplies from other manufacturers and therefore decrease its reliance on Samsung. On the other, Apple is well-known for demanding and pushing lower pricing, meaning it just doesn't make business sense anymore for Samsung to keep supplying Apple with displays."
In fact, it sounds like you may be exactly correct. Another version of the story I read earlier today had this quote:
“We are unable to supply our flat-screens to Apple with huge price discounts. Samsung has already cut our portion of shipments to Apple and next year we will stop shipping displays,” said a senior Samsung source, asking not to be named, Monday.
And then went on to say:
The report claims that Samsung shipped approximately 15 million LCD panels to Apple in the first half of 2012, with the pace falling to 3 million panels in the third quarter and expected to drop to 1.5 million in the fourth quarter as Apple has shifted to other suppliers.
Long story short, Apple probably made unreasonable demands for price while reducing requested quantities as they shifted to using LG and others, more or less forcing Samsung to terminate the contract. This comes as no real surprise, given the legal battles. Nor is the timing surprising, given that Apple just shifted their chip design (which Samsung had previously collaborated on) to be handled internally, is reportedly moving chip manufacturing from Samsung to TSMC and other companies, and is getting their Flash memory from Toshiba, Micron, and others instead of Samsung, as they used to. If there's something left in the iOS devices that Samsung has a hand in, the smart money would be on it getting moved to a different company as well.
Like the parent to your post said, the Nexus 10:
"Google has also been working with Samsung to launch a 10-inch tablet, confirming leaks which suggested Google had teamed up with the Korean manufacturer for another device. Our source tells us that internally the tablet goes under the name “Codename Manta”, runs Google’s new Android 4.2 operating system (previously referred to as Key Lime Pie, but is set to retain the Jelly Bean branding), and will offer a 2560×1600 pixel (16:10) resolution, which we believe will offer around 300 pixels per inch (PPI) compared to the new iPad’s 264 PPI."
http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/10/21/revealed-everything-that-google-will-announce-at-its-android-event-on-october-29/