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."

Comments

Patent disputes

[AbhiTheOne]

This clearly seems to be the result of patent disputes...

Re:Patent disputes

[Guspaz]

Or perhaps Samsung was simply not willing to reduce prices as low as Apple's other screen manufacturers like LG were? Or was not willing to commit to the volumes Apple wanted? Or any other many reasons why they might end this kind of supply contract?

Re:Patent disputes

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps Samsung was simply not willing to reduce prices as low as Apple's other screen manufacturers like LG were? Or was not willing to commit to the volumes Apple wanted? Or any other many reasons why they might end this kind of supply contract?

Give me a break. The gun is still smoking from two of the worlds largest vendors going head to head in a monster legal battle, and we want to sit here and jerk each other off with all the other business theories as to why a contract was terminated between the two?

Seriously, let's stop bullshitting each other here with answers straight out of the MBA textbook already. After what they just went through, one does not simply kiss and make up.

We all know damn well why this happened, regardless if anyone will utter a word beyond the golf course.

Re:Patent disputes

[mwvdlee]

Business is no place for petty grudges.

Re:Patent disputes

[Hes Nikke]

Volume is a huge deal if you are loosing money on each item. If you're losing 5 for each unit you ship but only ship 1000, you lost $50. If you are losing 5 for each unit and you ship 100,000,000, you lost $5,000,000. That is pretty significant.

Re:Patent disputes

[marcosdumay]

When you can make a profit of $4 a part from 20 smaller customers who together buy say, 10M parts, but you lose $0.05 per part on 100M parts for Apple (or another big supplier-raping customer, there are many - just pick a big name), the choice is pretty easy.

A semiconductor guy saying that?!? No, the answer is not easy, and any option you choose may banckrupt you.

Re:Patent disputes

[warrigal]

When I worked for IBM in the '80s there was a policy for suppliers:
1. We aren't the supplier's sole/major customer.
2. They aren't our sole/major supplier.
3. We changed suppliers every few years so there was no risk of dependency building up.
Also, it doesn't do anyone any good to bankrupt your suppliers. Some competitor could swoop in and buy them out. Their skilled people may leave the industry. They may merge with their competitor and reduce diversity of supply. And so on.
No sane manufacturer puts his suppliers in jeopardy by forcing them to sell at a loss.

Re:Patent disputes

[symbolset]

IBM takes a longer term view. The young Turks of Silicon Valley don't. They think they will never run out of suppliers to starve. In the short term they are right. In the longer term IBM is right, but in a day when the CxO and Board can't see past the next quarterly report the IBM view is less popular.

Re:FUD

[IamTheRealMike]

It can be both ways. If Samsung made it clear to Apple that they would ship them panels only for as long as the contract required them to, and would then terminate the relationship, obviously Apple is going to reduce the size of their orders as fast as possible because transitioning to an alternative supplier takes time and you need to ensure everything runs smoothly with the new factories, etc.

Re:Retina Displays?

[Sable Drakon]

'Retina Display' is just one of Apple's bullshit marketing terms. Little more than a handy way to convey that they're using higher PPI IPS panels, because the average consumer knows nothing about what PPI or IPS happens to be. It's not a standard.

Re:Retina Displays?

[BrooksMarlin]

So it's in fact not a bullshit marketing term, but an effective way to convey an idea that consumers wouldn't normally understand.

Re:FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung has provided Apple with heavily discounted prices based on really large volume. Apple has actively been working to find other display providers so as to not purchase from Samsung. Samsung no longer has economic interest to provide Apple with heavily discounted displays since Apple is no longer providing the volume to which Apple negotiated. Samsung is simply telling Apple to finish finding their other suppliers as fast as possible because Samsung is no longer going to stay in an agreement to which Apple is actively working to fuck over Samsung. To do so would be stupid and extremely poor business.

Basically this is Apple crying like little bitches and Samsung making sane business decisions based on Apple's efforts to tell Samsung to fuck off. Once again, Apple is acting like a spoiled little bitch.

   

Re:Retina Displays?

[green1]

No, because it is much better to tell people what resolution they get, and what size screen, or such instead of a useless name that means absolutely nothing. The only reason to use such terms is to confuse customers and make it harder to compare your products to the competitions' (of course Apple knows that it's customers don't comparison shop, so they don't really care there)

Re:Retina Displays?

[Applekid]

Agreed.

Hardware manufacturer: We have a new 15 inch display at 2880x1800, wanna buy it?
Consumer: Well, is it a Retina Display (TM)?
Hardware manufacturer: Well no, that's a brand name owned by Apple. But our display exceeds what they call "Retina Display (TM)" with a PPI of-
Consumer: Not a Retina Display (TM), clearly inferior. If it was better, it too would be called Retina Display (TM). Not interested.

Re:FUD

[NatasRevol]

How is Apple crying if it's Samsung saying this?

Oh, right. Apple hater. Nevermind.

Re:Retina Displays?

[localman]

Telling the average person that their display is 100 ppi or 300 ppi or 600 ppi is not useful unless they happen to know enough about human vision to interpret it. The term "retina display" is a marketing term that means "you won't see pixelation", and that's actually a useful thing to know. I hate when companies use meaningless numbers (i.e. no connection to purpose) to market things. You end up with idiots pushing and buying 600dpi displays because it's "more" even though it's pointless for human vision.

If you're a techie and you want those numbers for some reason, that's fine. Apple still publishes the resolution and screen size like they always have. But marketing to the common person in a way that is useful to them is not "bullshit".

Re:Retina Displays?

[jo_ham]

Actually, it does mean something. It has a defined meaning, from Apple, presented at the keynote based on a formula relating distance, human visual acuity and the spacing between pixels on the display.

At the point where the pixels are indistinguishable (by varying either d or h, or a combination of both), the display is termed "Retina".

This is the actual slide presented by Apple when explaining the terminology ("a" is the viewing angle subtended by the pixel spacing "h" and distance from your eye "d").

http://www.melamorsicata.it/mela/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/formula-Retina-display.jpg

Just because you *think* it's bullshit doesn't mean it actually is. Your ignorance of a fact doesn't make it untrue.

Re:Retina Displays?

[Archangel Michael]

Cornea Display(TM) and then license it to all other display companies for next to nothing. Learn to OUT MARKET Apple.

On the other hand, if you call it Cornea Display, Apple will sue because it is too close to Retina. Then you get free marketing by lawyers.

if it's a scientific term, then should be open

[Chirs]

If "retina display" is used as a scientific rather than marketing term then it shouldn't be copyrightable by Apple. Any display of equivalent angular density should be freely called a "retina display".