Until this year, Samsung was one of Apple's main partners in terms of supplying LCD screens for iDevices, but starting with iPhone 5 the American company turned to other partners. Although there is a long dispute between the two companies and numerous lawsuits open all over the world, those from Samsung I say that this break has to do with the money that Apple would pay for the LCD screens. Samsung claims that it can no longer provide LCD screens at low prices for Apple, those from Cupertino expecting to receive substantial discounts for large orders, something that Samsung does not want to do anymore.
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. But Samsung shipped less than 3 million to Apple during the third quarter of this year and we expect the quarterly shipment in the fourth quarter to fall to some 1.5 million. Although we are losing Apple business, Samsung looks safe as we found the right alternatives — Amazon and Samsung Electronics' handset division.
For several months, Apple started to reduce the number of LCD screens ordered from Samsung, the Koreans expected that this break would happen sooner or later, and starting next year the contract between the two companies will become history. In the light of the scandals of recent years, it was normal for Samsung and Apple to stop their collaboration, and by 2014 I think that Samsung will be completely removed from the production process of components for iDevices.
