Apple will be world’s biggest purchaser of OLED smartphone screens in 2021

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iPhone 12 Pro Max screen looks great, even from an angle.
The iPhone 12 featured OLED displays on every model.
Photo: Apple

Apple will become the world’s leading purchaser of OLED smartphone displays in 2021, snapping up an enormous 169 million panels for use in its iPhones. That’s considerably up for the 114.5 million it bought last year. It also puts Apple ahead of Samsung when it comes to buying these displays.

But don’t feel too bad for Samsung.

The news about Apple becoming the biggest OLED purchaser makes a lot of sense. Apple is once again the biggest vendor in the world in terms of smartphone sales, having enjoyed a strong finish to 2020. That trajectory looks likely to continue due to the massive success of the iPhone 12 series.

Samsung, which is likely to buy 157 million OLED panels in 2021 (up ever-so-slightly from 152.3 million the year before), has been using OLED in its high-end devices much longer than Apple. By comparison, Apple introduced its first AMOLED phone way back in 2011 with the original Galaxy Note. Apple only added AMOLED screens with the iPhone X in 2017.

However, until the iPhone 12, OLED displays were only featured on the top-of-the-line iPhones. Lower-tier iPhones such as the iPhone XR received the regular LCD screen. That has now changed, with every iPhone 12 model featuring the same OLED display. That means, understandably, that Apple needs a whole lot more of them.

Samsung will sell Apple the displays

So why shouldn’t we shed a tear for Samsung, then? Well, aside from the fact that crying over a tech giant falling into second place would be misguided, Samsung also benefits from Apple’s OLED demand.

Samsung Display is expected to be the biggest OLED provider of panels for iPhones in 2021. Of Apple’s total order, Samsung Display will supposedly provide roughly 110 million. LG Display will sell Apple 50 million, while BOE will sell it an additional 9 million.

Source: Digitimes (paywall)

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