According to a new report from market research firm DisplaySearch, Samsung claimed the top spot as Apple’s biggest iPad display panel supplier in the first quarter of 2014, shipping 5.2 million units of the high resolution 9.7-inch panels that were used in the iPad Air and the reintroduced 4th generation iPad. Samsung’s panels accounted for 62% of Apple’s 9.7-inch displays, while longtime partner LG Display shipped 3.2 million displays to account for 38% of the total.
Despite being fierce competitors and opponents in the courtroom, Apple and Samsung remain important partners, with Samsung reportedly supplying more than half of all high-resolution Retina displays for Apple’s full-size iPad last quarter. Samsung is said to have shipped 5.2 million 9.7-inch Retina displays to Apple in the first quarter of calendar 2014, according to a report highlighted by CNet. That was reportedly good for 62 percent of full-size iPad shipments in the three-month span. Apple currently sells two high-resolution iPad models at that size: The iPad Air, its current-generation tablet starting at $499, and the iPad with Retina display, a legacy model priced at $399. Samsung’s gains in supplying large iPad displays came at a cost to competitor LG Display, which saw its share of Apple’s components drop from 61 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 to 38 percent in the first quarter of 2014.
