Samsung Forms Team of 200 People to Exclusively Focus on Apple Products

As Apple increases its reliance on Samsung the South Korean manufacturer’s display arm has formed a team of people to focus exclusively on Apple’s products, sources speaking with Bloomberg reveal.

The new Apple team consists of 200 employees and comes into effect as of April 1st. The group will pay particular attention to building iPad and MacBook displays, and also help with sales.

Samsung is relying more on its display and semiconductor units after falling into a tiewith Apple for leadership of the global smartphone market. Relations between the companies thawed after they dropped all lawsuits against each other outside the U.S., and Apple is now the biggest external customer for Samsung components, one of the people familiar said.

“The new exclusive team for Apple implies that the relationship between Samsung and Apple has improved,” said Jerry Kang, an analyst at Englewood, Colorado-based researcher IHS Inc. “This also suggests that Samsung Display will win screen orders from Apple, such as for the Apple Watch.”

After ending their ongoing patent lawsuits outside the US, rumours suggested that business relations between the two tech giants have improved somewhat. Considering that major suppliers such as LG Display and Foxconn already have teams solely concentrating on Apple products, Samsung’s new team would suggest that the two parties will be working together closely in the near future.

The news seems to corroborate an earlier rumour of Samsung winning the majority of Apple’s A9 chip orders.