More fallout from Apple’s patent lawsuit win against Samsung: the South Korean company’s LCD arm will stop selling displays to the Cupertino, California iPhone maker. The reason? Samsung Display no longer sees Apple as “a cash-generator due to the iPhone maker’s stiffer supply-chain management structure,” a South Korean newspaper reports.
“We are unable to supply our flat-screens to Apple with huge price discounts,” a senior Samsung source was quoted Monday. To make up for the lost business, both Samsung’s own handset unit and Amazon are upping their orders from Samsung Display, the source said…
Samsung’s LCD shipments to Apple have been cut by a third since the start of 2012. According to research firm DisplaySearch, Samsung shipped 15 million displays to Apple during the first half of the year, making it the iPad maker’s top supplier of LCD screens. However, by the third quarter of this year, that 15 million displays had shrunk to under 3 million units.
“We expect the quarterly shipment in the fourth quarter to fall to some 1.5 million,” the unnamed Samsung employee told The Korea Times newspaper.
Samsung Display did not supply LCD screens for the as-yet unreleased iPad mini. On Wall Street, Samsung’s decision is not unexpected. The upcoming 7.85-inch iPad’s screen with 3.14 million pixels cost Apple $.00003 per pixel.
The iPad 2’s LCD display cost $.000063 per pixel, according to the Korea Times.
The unofficial announcement from Samsung is mostly a face-saving measure. Apple has made it no secret it is carving the South Korean rival out of the supply chain. Panasonic is likely to take Samsung’s spot, having recently pulled out of the consumer LCD TV business and hinted it would like to supply iPad displays.
The next shoe to watch fall could be Samsung’s chip business with Apple as we’ve repeatedly heard that the California-based electronics firm wants to replace Samsung with Taiwan’s TSMC.
In your view, are Samsung’s and Apple’s business too intertwined to totally disconnect from each other?