Is the iPhone 5 a Samsung killer?

Could S III be “shamed” by this? Image: iPhone mock-up.

The CEO of Apple’s biggest supplier, Foxconn (Hon Hai)  says the new iPhone 5 will “put Samsung’s Galaxy III to shame,” Terry Gou , declared at a shareholder meeting last week.

iPhone 5 due out later this year is said to be thinner but with a bigger (rumoured) 4″ screen 1136 x 640 – although that’s less than rival Galaxy S3 bright AMOLED 1280 x 720 display – A5 chip for faster processing and improved Siri.

However, Gou failed to specify how exactly the next iPhone will put S III to shame.

The Samsung Galaxy S III – released in May is touted as the smartphone Apple iPhone 5 has to beat, with S-voice (similar to Apple Siri), full HD (1080p) recording, Super AMOLED touchscreen with 1280 x 720 pixels and better OS functionality than S II with Android 4.0.

And Foxconn boss Gou has a deep hatred for Korean makers Samsung and referred to them at a shareholders AGM Friday as “a company with a track record of snitching on its competitors.”

The fiesty Gou was referring to a price fixing row in Europe where Samsung gave details to regulators of Taiwanese companies suspected of fixing prices of flat panels.

Another reason he is hoping i5 will kill off Samsung S III released last month – one of Foxconn’s other major clients is Sharp and is hoping its new TV panel technology will give it the edge over TV gurus Samsung.
 
Taiwanese based Hon Hai, as it is known locally, is one of Sharp’s largest shareholders and owns a 10% stake in the Japanese firm and Gou himself even is to acquire almost 50% under his own name in Sharp’s Sakai-based 10th-generation LCD panel plant

However, Samsung’s head of telcommunications said he expects the giant to sell 10 million handsets globally by July, and is already the worlds top smartphone maker knocking Nokia off the top spot recently, meaning Apple will have their work cut out to make iPhone 5 the hero phone many are hoping for.

This comes as S3 was launched in its native Korea Monday.

“We’re doing fairly well in emerging-economy markets… I think our second-quarter earnings will be better than the first quarter’s, despite the difficult economic situation in Europe,” said J.K. Shin, Samsung’s head of the mobile communications division, this week.