While Samsung Electronics is reeling from a patent pounding by its smartphone rival Apple Inc, this is unlikely to damage the other part of their relationship – where Samsung is the sole supplier of Apple-designed chips that power the iPhone and iPad.
At an emergency meeting in Seoul early on Sunday following the damning U.S. legal defeat, the South Korean group’s post mortem was led by vice chairman Choi Gee-sung and the head of the mobile business JK Shin, rather than by CEO Kwon Oh-hyun, whose primary role is in charge of the components business.
The reason that Kwon was reportedly not present, even though he is the CEO of Samsung, is because the company has a “strict internal firewall” between its component supply business and handset operations, according to Reuters.
Citing an unnamed executive who took part in Sunday’s meeting in Seoul, it was said that Samsung considers its supply contract with Apple a “separate issue from the litigation,” in which Samsung was found to have copied features of Apple’s iPhone and iPad..
While Apple and Samsung are fierce competitors in the businesses of smartphones, tablets, computers and more, Samsung is also Apple’s largest supplier of components and parts for its popular devices. Most notably, Samsung is responsible for building the custom processors featured in Apple’s iOS devices, including the iPhone and iPad.
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