The indisputable leader of the MP3 player market is strong enough to turn its back on a $4 billion agreement. Apple had initially approved the investment plan with Korean producer Samsung Electronics, which was supposed to ship flash memory chips designed for MP3 players.

From the official statements made by a Samsung official quoted by the Korea Economic Daily, it results that the reason behind this break-up was some companies' and political groups' reaction against Samsung. Apple has joined these companies and it seems that the Cupertino company is currently negotiating with an American chip producer.

The collaboration between Apple and Samsung was announced as one of gargantuan proportions, since Apple had announced its plans to acquire 40% of the entire NAND flash production. These storage media were supposed to be included in Apple's iPod Shuffle lineup.

Samsung is the leader of the NAND flash chip producers and together with the success of the portable multimedia devices, the production of high capacity, cheap and reliable storage solutions has also increased.

According to Reuters, early this month, two executives at Samsung Group, the parent of the world's most valuable technology firm outside of the United States, were found guilty of conspiring in a 1996 deal to help the children of the group's chairman buy a majority stake in an affiliate at below-market prices.

Because of the negative impact on the company's image and of the losses announced by Samsung (caused by the memory modules' price decrease), investors have started to regard the Korean company with doubt.