When rumors hit hard: Samsung falls 6 percent after Apple turns to Elpida

What a difference a rumor makes. Samsung, which supplies some of Apple’s mobile parts, lost $10 billion off its market cap yesterday after a report surfaced that Apple had taken some of its business elsewhere.

Yesterday, DigiTimes reported that Apple turned to the financially troubled Elpida for a large order of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM. The Japanese company, which recently filed for bankruptcy, could act as an agent for keeping competition high and prices low among Apple suppliers, according to Reuters. And the move is already starting to take a toll on Apple’s current DRAM manufacturers.

South Korea’s Samsung and SK hynix both experienced major drops in stock. Samsung suffered a six percent loss, plummeting far enough to make it the largest drop the company has experienced in four years, says Reuters. SK Hynix also closed down nine percent.

While Apple and Samsung have had a seemingly strong relationship on the supplier side, the two are embattled in lawsuits over a large variety of infringement cases. Most recently, Samsung was effectively spanked by a California judge who said the company was taking too long to comply with discovery orders. The judge ordered that Samsung not be allowed to defend itself in that particular case using the evidence it failed to hand over in the discovery process.

via Reuters; Image via Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It. World Tour/Flickr