Samsung Display is investing heavily in OLED displays in anticipation for the iPhone 8 in 2017, according to a new report. The South Korean company believes that other smartphone makers will also follow suit, and it’s fighting for a piece of that pie!
Reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is confident Apple will shift to OLED displays for next year’s iPhones. The company has been using LCD displays since the product’s inception, but OLED technology is now considered to be superior — and better on battery life.
With the move now planned, OLED display makers want to be ready for it. DigiTimes, citing a report out of Japan, claims that Samsung Display will invest around $6.82 billion this year alone to expand its OLED production capacity by 50 percent.
“The added OLED panel production capacity will be sufficient for production of 200 million units of smartphones, compared to Samsung’s current capacity of 300 million OLED panels for smartphones, said the paper.”
There is a risk that Samsung will manufacture too many OLED panels, which would have an impact on profitability, the report adds. But that’s the risk the company must take to ensure that it is ready to take on any big orders.
LG Display is also said to be investing big money in the coming years to increase its own OLED panel production for both smartphones and TV, while JDI will spend around $479 million next year to do the same.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
4 responses to “Samsung makes big OLED push ahead of iPhone 8”
That a good dog Samsung…heel….heeeeel. Here’s a doggy treat.
Nope. It is called playing both sides. Samsung, Amazon, Microsoft and Google all make money by both competing with Apple and supplying Apple with products and services.
Samsung: makes smartphones, tablets, smart watches, PCs and smart home devices … and they supply Apple with CPUs, memory chips (for both mobile devices and PCs) and now screens
Google: nominally makes smartphones, tablets, PCs and smart home devices but primarily makes the only real competitor to Apple in mobile devices …. and they have all their apps on iOS and OS X as well as host some of iCloud in Google Cloud Services
Amazon: nominally makes tablets and smart home devices … and they sell Apple devices, have their apps on iOS and OS X and also hosts iCloud
Microsoft: rinse, lather, repeat
Apple will at some point – meaning like 4 years at minimum and likely more – be able to fully host their own cloud services and perform their own analytics. But Samsung will still be a major supplier of Apple for CPU, memory and screen components as Apple lacks the ability and expertise to make those on their own. And Google, Amazon and Microsoft will continue to make money in various ways with their apps being installed on iOS and OS X. That is not going to change in, like, ever.
Hopefully it will make for some cheaper OLED TV’s
OLED is not considered” better, it is better
Apple would not switch to what’s “considered” better, they will switch to what IS better.
The iPhone is their money maker so why do you think they would put something in it that’s sub par?
As much as iFans might dislike Samsung, there’s a reason why apple does business with them.