While Samsung’s chip-making division is set to gain huge profits from the presence of is indigenously developed Exynos chips in most of the Galaxy S6 smartphones , the future looks even more bright, as the Korean giant is set to regain a lost customer in Apple.
A report by Bloomberg suggests, that Samsung is getting back into Apple’s chip supplier’s list , and that too on a top priority, according to a person associated directly with the matters. Samsung had earlier lost a major chunk of profits to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) as orders for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus chips went TSMC’s way.
The source further explained that Samsung will start making Apple A9 processor chips at its Giheung plant in South Korea, with a second source saying that some of the orders might go to Samsung’s partner company, Globalfoundries Inc.
Samsung will take this as a major achievement, considering that it lost a rather incumbent position to TSMC last year. US-based Qualcomm too has been competing for chip orders, however the company has more recently failed to withstand its Asian counterparts.
The new Samsung-Apple contract, if true, will also be significant with respect to financials involved. A report by research firm Gartner Inc suggests that Apple spent a whopping $25.8 billion on chips last year, accounting for 7.6 percent of industry purchases. The semiconductor chip manufacturing industry is currently valued at over $300 Billion according to various industry estimates.
Supplying chips for the iPhone and its own S6 smartphone will help Samsung turn its non-memory semiconductor business from a 1 trillion won ($914 million) loss last year to a 1 trillion won gain, said Song Myung Sup, a Seoul-based analyst at HI Investment & Securities Co.,to Bloomberg.
IMAGE : BLOOMBERG
