For most companies, which are involved in supplying items to other companies, landing a supply contract with one of the world’s largest corporations is a significant deal. The inking of such a contract elevates the stature of a company and in addition to that, it helps in drawing new clients with far more ease. On the flipside, the loss of a big-ticket client can also be hugely damaging and can lead to long-lasting damage for the company in question. It might lead to a flight of existing clients and severely erode revenues, not to speak of the loss of reputation for having lost a significant client.
That is what seems to be happening with British firm Nanoco which specializes in quantum dot technology and had been contracted by Apple to help it in building quantum dot cameras for its iPhone. Such phone cameras produce pictures of much higher quality and hence the whole thing made perfect sense. Nanoco, which is based out of Manchester, England, has seen its technology is primarily used for high definition televisions. Apple had been working on the feasibility of introducing such a camera to its iPhone for quite some time and to that end, the American tech giant partnered with Nanoco back in November last year.
In this regard, it needs to be mentioned that Nanoco had only stated that “large, undisclosed U.S. listed corporation” had partnered with them. However, in a new development, it has now emerged that Apple has now canceled the contract. The deal was a highly lucrative one for Nanoco, as Apple was set to pay the British company $21.7 million over the court of the two-year contract. It is important to note that the size of the contract is around half the company’s revenues and would have helped it in funding its expansion plans. On Friday, Nanoco announced that the client in questions had canceled the project and as soon as the news was announced, the company’s shares collapsed. It dropped by as much as 80% on Friday.
