Apple and Samsung have quite the business relationship. Apple is Samsung’s biggest customer, yet both companies have extensive legal disputes with one another. The Economist took data from iSuppli to compile an image detailing all the parts made by Samsung and other suppliers. Here’s what’s Samsung is responsible for:
It provides some of the phone’s most important components: the flash memory that holds the phone’s apps, music and operating software; the working memory, or DRAM; and the applications processor that makes the whole thing work. Together these account for 26% of the component cost of an iPhone.
So just over a quarter of the iPhone is relied upon Samsung for parts. The second part of the graphic shows the average sale price of an iPhone as $560, with $368 going to Apple, $178 towards components, and $14 towards Foxconn for manufacturing the iPhone. Apple has become an expert in perfecting its supply chain, under the leadership of COO, Tim Cook.
Apple now has the largest marketshare of smartphones, and is the world’s most valuable company by marketshare, passing oil giant Exxon Mobil. The iPhone 4 is also the most popular phone in Canada. Next up, bring on the iPhone 5 and ‘iCloud iPhone’, right?
