The mobile device supply chain has been transformed in the past couple of years, and will continue to be so. It is being reshaped by the falling margins and price wars of the competitive and commoditizing smartphone sector, and by a market which is polarized between two Herculean tasks. At one end, companies like Samsung and Apple need to assert as much control as possible over their components and suppliers in order to differentiate themselves, creating value while also keeping costs low. At the other, a rising band of regional and international players need to achieve ultra-low costs in order to take part in the pricing bloodbath at the commodity end, and still emerge with some profits. In the middle…