Apple reduced chips orders from Samsung
The technology company Apple declined requests for memory chips for its new phones iPhone to its main supplier and competitor, Samsung Electronics, said a source with direct knowledge of the matter on Friday.
The South Korean firm Samsung is a key supplier of Apple and produces microprocessors, flat screens and memory chips, both of dynamic random access memory DRAM and NAND memory chips-for iPhone, iPad and iPod.
Apple has reduced its orders to Samsung in a bid to diversify its supply of memory chips, although the South Korean firm is still in the list of leading suppliers to the new iPhone, the source told Reuters.
The Korea Economic Daily, citing unnamed industry, reported Friday that Apple had withdrawn from the list of Samsung memory chip suppliers for the first release of the new iPhone, the iPhone 5, which is expected to be filed Wednesday.
The information indicated that Apple had chosen instead to Japan's Toshiba, Elpida Memory and Hynix Korea's SK to supply DRAM and NAND chips.
"Samsung is still in the list of suppliers of memory chips (for the new iPhone). Orders But Apple and Samsung have been falling it is compensating with other orders, especially with Samsung's handset business," said source told Reuters.
The Samsung device business, led by strong sales of its Galaxy product line, has become the most important pillar of earnings, and is encouraging the sale of components from memory chips to microprocessors and displays.
Samsung, the world's leading manufacturer of smart phones, said Thursday that sales of its Galaxy S III exceeded 20 million devices since its launch in late May.
The source denied market speculation that the least number of orders from Apple was motivated by the tense relationship between the two companies, which are engaged in patent disputes, and said that the U.S. company had been pursuing expanding its supply chain.
Bernstein analysts estimate that Apple purchases of chips for mobile DRAM and NAND have fallen significantly and now account for only about 2.5% of Samsung's profits in 2012.