No Samsung Memory Inside iPhone5

The relationship between Apple and Samsung must at best be very tense. With Apple getting a court to agree that Samsung has been copying its designs, and then issuing a billion dollar payout, it’s easy to see why. But Apple isn’t just stopping at suing Samsung, it’s also reducing orders with the South Korean company.

According to “an industry source” who wished to remain nameless, the first batch of iPhone 5 smartphones Apple ships won’t use memory (NAND or DRAM) supplied by Samsung. Samsung easily has the capacity, but Apple has instead decided to use three other manufacturers to meet demand. Those companies being Elpida Memory, SK Hynix, and Toshiba.

It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that this is a retaliation on the part of Apple, but that seems unlikely. Apple is just ensuring it has multiple suppliers in case something goes wrong and manufacturing slows down or stops at one of them. Apparently Samsung is still on the supplier list, but just not near enough to the top to get an iPhone 5 memory order. And Samsung isn’t going to mind as it means more memory to use in its popular handsets and tablets.

You do have to wonder, though, if Apple hadn’t taken issue with Samsung’s devices would it have been first on the list for memory supplier?

Both companies are in the business of making money, and if Apple needs a part Samsung can reliably supply cheaper than anyone else, they will source those parts from Samsung. And vice versa, Samsung isn’t going to stop advertising its manufacturing abilities and trying to get Apple contracts.