Even if not the Cupertino based company will likely hedge a significant amount of stock and that a bulkdiscount will ensure they can always have a cheaper bill of materials than any competitor using the alloy.
Yukos Oil has been broken up and sold to Russian state owned energy companies, with the bulk of those assets acquired at a discount by Rosneft, the largest oil company in Russia.
Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) aims its bank- card pitch at employers who buy them in bulk as staff gifts. (BofA declined to comment on whether employers receive a discount rate for buying scads of cards at a time.) There's no dormancy fee with BofA's product, but after nine months the cards become worthless, whatever the remaining balance is.