Let's face it: we're all guilty of over-dramatising the mobile industry at times, depicting large corporations as comic superheroes – or villains, depending on your allegiances – locked in mortal combat and determined to do whatever it takes to come out on top.
Take Apple and Samsung, for instance. It's good fun to talk about them as sworn enemies trying to beat each other into submission at every turn. But $11bn of Apple's money says differently.
That's what Apple is expected to be sending Samsung's way this year for Korean-made mobile bits and pieces to stick inside its all-conquering iDevices – primarily processors and Retina Display panels. That's compared to $7.8bn last year.
So says an unnamed Samsung exec tapped up by The Korea Times for some inside info. According to the source, agreements already in place guarantee $9.7bn will change hands in 2012. But if Apple does unveil a smaller iPad variant later this year – as many are expecting – the figure could rise by more than a billion by year end.
“Samsung is the only parts maker in the world ideally positioned to meet all of the critical conditions – better pricing, technolgically enhanced products, on-time delivery and the capability to immediately respond to any emergency situation,” the Samsung insider says.
Some are reporting the comments as unofficial confirmation that the iPad mini is indeed real, though it's hard to say for sure without knowing just how senior the exec being quoted actually is.
Time will tell, but in the meantime we'll go back to thinking of Apple and Samsung as contestants in some kind of corporate Celebrity Death Match. It's just more fun.
