It's no secret that Apple didn't actually make your iPhone 4. It has no factories manufacturing its products.
Apple buys in the components from various other companies and then - as far as the iPhone 4 is concerned - pays Foxconn to put the device together at a huge factory in China, box it up and ship it to customers.
And the infographic teardown above, produced by The Economist, shows that Apple's biggest component supply company is.... arch rival Samsung.
The South Korean electronics giant supplies the iPhone 4 flash memory, which stores your data, music, apps and in fact all your iPhone content. It also makes the DRAM operating memory and even the processor at the heart of the device.
In fact, Samsung supplies 26% of the components of your iPhone 4.
And remember that Apple is in the middle of a fierce legal battle with Samsung. Apple is accusing Samsung of stealing the iPhone and iPad designs for its range of Galaxy Tab smartphones and components. And it's serious stuff...Samsung has been effectively stopped from distributing its new 10.1" Galaxy Tab in Europe by a court order granted to Apple in Germany.
It's a strange old world in big business.
You can read more about the teardown at The Economist.
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