Anyone who dreams of Apple giving a “This is Sparta!”-style thrust-kick to rival Samsung, forever booting it out of Cupertino’s production process, is going to be sorely disappointed.
If anything, Apple’s leaning more heavily than ever on its longtime frenemy, with new reports claiming Samsung created a standalone team of around 200 employees dedicated exclusively to building new screens for iPads, MacBooks and possibly future Apple Watches.
The move benefits both Apple — which gets Samsung’s top-quality displays out of the bargain — and Samsung, which is relying more than ever on its display and semiconductor business after a decline in its handset sales. To strengthen management, Samsung Display is said to have split its liquid-crystal display and organic light-emitting diodes departments as of April 1, according to a spokesman for the company.
Samsung is also going to make Apple’s A9 processor chips for its next iPhone at the company’s Giheung plant in South Korea. In doing so it wins back orders Apple had previously handed over to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. for the A8 chip.
Today’s report claims Apple is now the biggest external customer for Samsung components.
Source: Bloomberg
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
4 responses to “Samsung sets up 200-person team to build displays for Apple”
I just don’t understand how Apple can trust these sleazebags with anything. Any kind of display that Apple will order from them will create a 200 person Samsung team dedicated to figure out what they’re working on and duplicating it.
Samsung doesn’t need to “duplicate” it because they are the ones that invented it!
So it’s not about trust, but rather Apple lacks the expertise that Samsung engineers have in display technology.
For example, the Cinema display back panels were purchased from Dell. And do you think Apple also invited Gorilla Glass? Apple uses the best technology that other companies invent.
Ah that’s right….Samsung’s phones over the last four years had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they stole ideas from having access to the iPhone’s production process.
Thanks for wasting my time.
> For example, the Cinema display back panels were purchased from Dell
No that would be LG. Dell doesn’t make panels.