Samsung is reportedly making a bid to steal away Toshiba’s job of producing the flash memory chips for the iPhone 6s — something which would help out the South Korean tech giant at a time when its own mobile business is struggling.
The news follows not long after reports that the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is looking to add faster TLC-based NAND flash storage for the next-gen handsets, possibly en route to ditching the largely-useless 16GB entry level storage option in current iPhones.
Samsung’s NAND chip business has previously lost out to the Toshiba, SanDisk and SK Hynix when it comes to getting Apple’s business, largely due to the price that Samsung quoted to produce the chips on its own.
For the current iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, NAND orders are reportedly split between Toshiba, SK Hynix and SanDisk in a ratio of 50 percent, 20 percent and 20 percent. It’s not know how much of the business Samsung would be looking to take over, although it suggests that it might be after Toshiba’s production role.
As today’s report states:
“As Apple plans to increase its shipments of the mid-range iPhone models with larger capacities amid growing consumer demand for data-intensive features, including cloud services, Samsung Electronics is in talks to sell more of its flash chips for the next models.”
Samsung’s chip factory in Xian, China is said to be currently testing the stability and durability of its latest NAND chips, although as of yet no agreement has been made with Apple regarding pricing or shipments.
While nothing has been agreed, if today’s report is true it’s definitely bad news for anyone who dreams of a world in which Apple finally ditches Samsung altogether. Toshiba, we’re looking for you!
Source: Korea Times
