GT Advanced Technology has given an update on the status of its contract to supply Apple with sapphire displays for the upcoming iPhone 6 displays. According to the information provided with the company’s Q1 2014 financial report, Apple has already made three of four payments to GT Advanced for the sapphire, and GT notes that so far it is on track to meet demand.
Apple struck a deal with GTA last year to manufacture the sapphire displays that are expected to appear in the next-generation iPhone at a new plant in Mesa, Arizona. Earlier this year the plant was outfitted with enough sapphire crystal furnaces to create an estimated 100-200 million displays. At the end of April, Apple started sending its first shipments of sapphire to China, where the new iPhone models will be manufactured. These displays are expected to make their debut in the fall of this year along with two new iPhone models, each sporting a different size sapphire screen.
Along with these new devices, Apple is planning a significant new software update that includes a variety of changes, including a standalone iTunes Radio app and a new Healthbook application for tracking fitness and health data.
From the GT Advanced press release:
During the first quarter the company received its second prepayment from Apple in the amount of $111 million. Shortly after the end of the first quarter, the company received its third prepayment from Apple in the amount of $103 million, which is not reflected in the first quarter’s ending balance sheet. Inclusive of the third prepayment, the company has received approximately $440 million out of the $578 million total prepayments that it is eligible to receive under the agreement with Apple. The company expects that the total prepayments it receives from Apple will fully fund its capital outlays related to the project in Arizona.
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Who the hell did this rendering? I think Apple’s a little smarter than to make it look exactly like a Nokia Lumia.
The render is certainly uninspired, but you do know who Nokia got that design from, right?
The worst design I’ve ever seen. The headphone jack for instance will bend when the phone falls on that corner
LG
The 2nd gen iPod nano…
Please Dear Lord, make the square phone the real one!!!!!!
Where can I find that wallpaper on the left phone?
There is nothing in their statement that says anything about displays. Nothing.
But there are 11 mentions of sapphire, 10 mentions of Apple and this among other quotes: “With respect to our Arizona project, we have now received three of the four prepayments from Apple.”
Well, yeah. All of that has been known for some time. But the very first line of this piece says “update on the status of its contract to supply Apple with sapphire displays”
That is wrong. The update does not say that. The “displays” part is an invention of the author. Apple may well be offering sapphire displays, but that’s not what it said.
Apple uses sapphire in its fingerprint detection device. They will probably expand that across the line of devices. They may be creating a wearable device that uses sapphire. But none of that is confirmed, and yet this article treats it as fact. That was my point.