Samsung: The Rival Inside the PhoneNarrow moat

Samsung is the only company that competes with Apple at every level of the phone and also sells Apple the parts. On the competitive side it remains the global volume leader — 62.7 million units and 22.6% share in the second quarter of 2026 against Apple's 55.8 million and 20.1%¹ — and it reached foldables seven generations before Apple did. On the supply side, Samsung Display is Apple's principal OLED supplier², and for the foldable iPhone it holds an exclusive: Apple, which almost never single-sources anything, chose Samsung Display alone for the panels, with volumes reported around 11 million for 2026³.

That exclusivity is the tell. Apple's normal practice is to dual-source every significant component precisely so no supplier gains pricing power — and it has abandoned that discipline because in foldable panels there is no credible second source at the quality and volume required. Apple's most important new product depends on a division of its largest competitor.

In practice the arrangement holds because the two halves of Samsung are run as genuinely separate businesses, and Samsung Display would rather have Apple's volume than protect Samsung Electronics' market share. But the dependency is real and asymmetric in a way Apple usually refuses to accept. Watch for the second foldable panel supplier Apple will inevitably qualify, and watch the relative share trend — Samsung's units lead is stable, but its profit share is not close. Apple can live with losing on volume to a company it buys from; it could not live with losing on margin.