Samsung Will Reportedly Stop Manufacturing LCDs for Apple Devices

By Karla Robinson
October 23, 2012

Following the landmark patent suit with Samsung, Apple has lessened its reliance on its rival for iPhone parts — and now Samsung is pushing back.
“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,” a senior Samsung source told The Korea Times Monday on the condition of anonymity.
“Samsung has been the top supplier of liquid crystal displays to Apple, selling more than 15 million displays in the first half of 2012 to Apple,” GigaOM explains. “But according to the same unnamed source, Samsung has sold only 3 million to Apple since then. Apple has been cutting its reliance on Samsung Display and buying similar products from other sources, such as LG and Sharp.”
“Samsung has also seen its chip orders from Apple cut,” notes the article. “Reuters reported earlier that Apple planned to rely less on Samsung for the iPhone 5′s memory chips. Then perhaps to add a little insult to injury, Apple also recently snaked a top chip designer away from Samsung. In this context, the severed panel business relationship seems like an inevitable next step.”
Samsung is likely to simply substitute Apple’s business with its own, producing displays for its own line of tablets. Amazon could also be a potential new customer for the company with its expansion of tablet offerings.

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