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
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.
3 responses to “Samsung wants an even bigger share of iPhone production”
“the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will be the first generation of iPhones to ditch the largely-useless 16GB entry level storage options”
There will be 16 GB iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
I guess Samsung needs to make up for the lost Samsung phone sales.
I honestly don’t understand how Apple can trust Samsung with anything. I would be trying to dump them as fast as possible.