Apple signs deal with LG for display supply
LG received $500 million upfront as part of a five-year deal that seems similar to deals Apple has cut with flash memory suppliers.
LG has cut a deal with Apple to supply displays for products like the MacBook Air.
(Credit: Apple)Apple has signed a five-year deal with LG Electronics to secure a supply of LCD displays.
Reuters reports that LG has received $500 million as a down payment on the deal, which LG disclosed in a filing to the Korea Exchange. The two companies are not exactly strangers; one analyst in South Korea estimated that LG already provides around 70 percent of Apple's flat-panel displays.
The deal appears to be somewhat similar to long-term supply deals that Apple has cut with flash-memory companies like Samsung, Micron, and Toshiba. Apple agreed to pay $1.25 billion in 2005 to five flash-memory companies in order to make sure it had enough chips at the right prices as its iPod division grew.
