What is interesting here is that if Samsung loses the Apple contract, it will have likely huge negative impacts on Samsung. Apple's huge parts purchasing has ef

What is interesting here is that if Samsung loses the Apple contract, it will have likely huge negative impacts on Samsung. Apple's huge parts purchasing has effectively bankrolled the R&D and overhead costs of Samsung's mobile operations for quite a while now. Thus, Samsung is able to use the same factories and parts in their own products cheaper than anyone else can because Apple's massive investments make it possible. If Apple had HTC or LG making all of their parts, it would be much easier for LG and HTC to compete. Eventually, as Apple moves away from Samsung it will be interesting to see if Samsung can keep up with Apple as Apple's huge contract no longer pays for the massive production overhead and R&D costs for mobile tech. My guess is over a 10 year period Samsung will lose a lot of its profitability advantage over other Android phone makers unless it can replace Apple's purchase volume their own sales.