Apple’s decision to slash iPhone X production has reportedly left Samsung looking for new customers to sell its OLED panels to.
Samsung ramped up production capacity in order to meet Apple’s demands, only to find itself sitting on excess production capacity now that Apple has reduced its iPhone X orders. While Samsung hopes to sell OLED displays to other manufacturers, many have been slow to adopt the technology due to the expense of changing from LCD screens.
Samsung is charging over $100 per OLED smartphone panel, including touch sensors. This is close to twice the price of the LCD displays made by the company. It is one of the big reasons the iPhone X is so expensive, and is prohibitively pricey for lower-end smartphone makers looking to compete with one another on price.
At present, Samsung is reportedly utilizing around 50 – 60 percent of its OLED production capabilities due to “sluggish demand.” This overcapacity means that “the price of rigid-type panels on glass substrates has been falling.” That likely won’t be helped by competition from Sharp and Japan Display, which are set to start mass-producing OLED panels this year or next.
The report finally suggests that production of the iPhone X is expected to drop by half in the first three months of this year from the initial estimate of more than 40 million units.
Source: Nikkei
