Since Samsung cannot shake the competition, they might as well sell them stuff and make tons of money out of it.
This strategy may seem a bit unorthodox, and to the average person, even crazy. However, while providing a big competitor with things that could give away their most heavily guarded secrets appears to be a suicide move, what many people do not know is that Samsung and Apple have been doing this for quite some time now.
Samsung has been providing Apple with their organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels since the development of the iPhone 8. OLED has graphics outputs that the standard Liquid Crystal Displays (LCD) cannot handle. OLED screens are much more powerful and are more capable of generating vivid images.
So far, only Samsung is capable of creating the panels that meet Apple's standards.
Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) reported in April that Apple had ordered 70 million units of OLED screens for 2017. While the report did not include any details on how much Samsung made from the deal, the sheer volume of the order alone suggests a very huge price.
And it's about to get bigger in this coming year.
According to The Investor, as reported by tech website Boy Genius Reports, Apple will require 180 million to 200 million OLED screens for 2018 — almost three times the volume of the previous order — and the South Korean electronics company is expected to make $22 billion from the sale.
The website even compared the deal to selling about 23 million units of Samsung 64 GB units without having to go through production and marketing.
However, while this partnership between rival companies is beneficial for both, it is by no means permanent.
According to KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, as reported by AppleInsider, Apple is in need of a new supplier of OLED screens as their dependence to their chief competitor gives them no choice other than pay between $120 and $130 for each unit.
