By Hyunjoo Jin
SEOUL, March 12 (Reuters) – The CEO of Samsung Display, a supplier for Apple and Samsung Electronics, said on Thursday the Iran war and surging oil prices threaten to drive up costs of energy and raw materials.
Samsung Display President & CEO Chung Yi said rapidly rising oil prices are adding to the tech industry’s challenges at a time when it is already grappling with soaring chip prices that are inflating the costs of phones, PCs and other electronics devices.
“When oil prices rise, the prices of these raw materials will also rise,” he told Reuters, noting that many raw materials such as films are made from crude oil.
“When this becomes a reality, I expect the cost burden to become significantly greater,” he said.
Samsung Display is a unit of Samsung Electronics. It makes flat-screens used in Apple’s iPhones and MacBooks, as well as mobile phones for Samsung Electronics.
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Shri Navaratnam)
