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Samsung Could Make $22 Billion Off Next Year's iPhones (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the it-takes-two-to-tango dept.

According to a report by Korean outlet ETnews (via The Investor), Apple placed an order for 180 million to 200 million OLED displays from Samsung's manufacturing branch, Samsung Display, for the next round of iPhones. Each display is estimated to cost $110, which could mean the deal is worth up to $22 billion. CNET reports: The recently released iPhone X was Apple's first phone to feature an OLED display, rather than an LCD panel. Samsung, on the other hand, has been using OLED displays in its phones for quite some time. Currently Samsung holds a near monopoly on the world's manufacturing of OLED screens. As a result, Apple had little choice but to turn to its rival for this type of screen. This isn't the first deal of its kind. Earlier this year it was reported that Apple bought 60 million OLED displays from Samsung, apparently for what would later become the iPhone X. According to the report, Apple's next order is up to four times larger than this previous order. Demand is so high that Samsung considered opening a new manufacturing plant to process Apple's order, the report said, but has been able to manufacture enough of the panels to fill Apple's order.

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Samsung could gross $22 billion by RhettLivingston · · Score: 2, Informative

    We have no idea how much they will make (a word usually synonymous with "profit") or even whether they will make anything at all on the deal given how expensive, and even risky, the tech is to develop and produce. Only time will tell.

    1. Re:Samsung could gross $22 billion by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

      The easiest way to tell if a journalist is economically illiterate is when they don't understand the difference between revenue and profit.

      TFA was written by someone who is not qualified to be writing about business.

    2. Re:Samsung could gross $22 billion by jabuzz · · Score: 1, Informative

      Making OLED displays is going to be hard for Apple. Firstly there are still a ton of valid patents in the field that would more or less exclude Apple, and given Samsung have invested large sums of money developing OLED displays that's exactly what patents are for, unlike Apples software bull shit patents.

      Secondly even in the absence of patents there is a huge amount of just "know how" in actually running a plant that actually produces OLED displays at volume. Again this is something that Samsung have spent many billions of dollars working out over many years and Apple cannot just magic out of nowhere.

      So if Apple want to make their own OLED displays they are going to have to negotiate some patent license deals and good luck with that, and then spend many years building the plant and getting the manufacturing processes perfected for the volumes they need. That will take years and billions of dollars, so it's not going to happen.