http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-30/apple-gets-more-bang-for-its-r-d-buck

(More good information in the video interview)

Under Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, Apple leans heavily on advances made by suppliers, focusing on crucial technology such as semiconductors, according to Ram Mudambi, a business school professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. Apple’s size motivates suppliers to pitch the company their biggest breakthroughs, says Mudambi, who studies successful companies with low research budgets.

The prospect of getting a new chip, screen, or camera flash inside a future iPhone helps Apple steer other companies’ research. Apple sold more than 230 million iPhones last year and has committed to spending $29.5 billion in the next 12 months on components such as chips, screens, camera modules, and graphics processors, up from $24.5 billion last year. “Suppliers are racing with each other to get Apple’s business, and part of the racing they are doing is spending more on R&D,” Mudambi says.