Japan Display - page 2

Just a few years back, Japan Display was talking about building a $1.4 billion factory to create iPhone displays for Apple. Jump forward to 2018 and the company is having to reimagine its future for a world in which smartphone growth isn’t guaranteed.

According to a new report, Japan Display has responded by focusing on smart sensors. Compared to one year ago, the firm has shifted one-third of its research staff to sensor development. These would be focused on everything from sleep tracking to assorted healthcare applications.

There’s good news and bad news about the more-affordable 6.1-inch iPhone supposedly in development. The good new is it may have bezels almost as thin as the iPhone X. The bad news is it’s not expected until November.

Apple is reportedly turning to a new type of LCD for this upcoming model. This will enable the slim bezels, but the supplier has run into production problems.

Samsung may currently be the only company to build OLED displays for the iPhone, but it faces a growing number of challengers going forward, a new report claims.

Not only is LG Display widely expected to become Apple’s second OLED producer in 2018, but other companies including Foxconn subsidiary Sharp and Japan Display are also keen to get a piece of the pie by becoming Apple’s third and fourth OLED suppliers.

Apple supply maker Japan Display has announced disappointing quarterly earnings, based in part on Apple’s shift to using OLED displays for the iPhone X.

While Japan Display still makes the LCD screens for the current generation iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, the “sluggish” sales of these devices have meant that its earnings have continued to fall. The company posted a net loss of 68 billion yen ($596 million) for the first half of fiscal 2017, an increased loss from the 16.7 billion yen it posted for the same period in 2016.

Apple supplier Japan Display has found a way to reduce the cost of flexible displays by swapping OLED panels for LCD. The company plans to start mass producing its new screens in 2018, and they’re likely to appear in future iPhones.

The Japanese government has bailed out struggling Apple display supplier Japan Display with a 75 billion yen ($636 million) aid package, the company admitted today.

The government-backed Innovation Network Corp. of Japan owns 36 percent of Japan Display, which works on Apple’s iPhones.

Rumors continue to stack up claiming that next year’s iPhone will ship with a curved display, but The Wall Street Journal suggests that such a smartphone is just “one of more than 10 prototypes being considered.”

Apple display maker Japan Display is set to receive yet another bailout, in the vicinity of $703 million, from the Japanese government-backed fund that is it’s larger shareholder, claims a new report.

The money will help Japan Display catch up its OLED manufacturing capabilities, which have been lagging behind its rival display makers.

Japan Display, one of Apple’s main component makers for iPhone displays, is struggling and could lose the financial support of the Japanese government if it’s not able to drum up more non-Apple biz.

The company has been hit by a triple threat: a rise in the Japanese yen, a reluctance to shift from its LCD technology while rival companies ramped up OLED facilities, and slowing iPhone sales.

Apple display maker Japan Display continues to suffer setbacks, with the latest being a fall in its share price after it was revealed that the company is seeking financial support from a Japanese government-backed fund.

Japan Display has been hit by the triple whammy of iPhone sales falling, a damaging rise in the Japanese yen currency, and seemingly betting on the wrong horse by hanging onto LCD technology for too long while rival companies were ramping up their OLED facilities for next year’s big iPhone refresh.

The rumors that Samsung is ramping up its OLED facilities bodes well for superior displays on next year’s iPhone refresh, but there’s one party that’s not quite so pleased: struggling Apple display maker Japan Display.

The reason? Because while other companies bet big on OLED, it seems that Japan Display doubled-down on its LCD technology — and may now be suffering the effects of its ill-timed decision.

Apple display maker Japan Display has, quite literally, millions of reasons why it’s desperate for Apple to switch to OLED displays for the iPhone as soon as possible.

The company reported a ¥31.8 billion ($293.5 million) loss for the recently-ended fiscal year as the rising value of the yen, and slowing iPhone and iPad sales, hit the manufacturer hard. And according to its bosses, it’s counting on Apple introducing OLED iPhone displays to help bail it out!

If the iPhone 6s Plus seems just a little bit too small in your monstrous hands, fret not dear giant friends: Apple may be planning to go even bigger with a super-sized iPhone 7s Pro.

Apple is looking to add a 5.8-inch OLED display to the iPhone in 2017 or 2018, according to a new rumor that claims Samsung is already on board to supply the screens.

It’s hardly speculation to suggest that, as soon as Apple is rumored to be entering a new area of production, every manufacturer with capacity wants to get in on the new opportunities.

The latest example of this is Japan Display, which is reportedly in the early stages of converting one of its factories in Ishikawa factory into an test production line to try and win iPhone orders when Apple switches to using OLED displays in the near future.

Despite a slowdown in China’s smartphone market, Apple is reportedly increasing orders of the iPhone 6s ahead of its launch, according to Japan Display CEO Mitsuru Homma.

“They’re coming to us with more orders, saying ‘give us more, give us more’. They keep increasing,” Homma said.

With more than 70 million iPhones sold in the last quarter alone, Apple has quickly become one of the world’s largest display buyers. To meet the increasing demand for iPhones, Apple has reportedly struck a deal with Japan Display to build a $1.4 billion factory dedicated solely to smartphone displays.

Apple may be about to invest $1.7 billion in a new factory for Japan Display, primarily dedicated to building smartphone screens for Cupertino.

The proposed plant would be located in Ishikawa, Japan, and is set to start operations in 2016. While it will reportedly also produce panels for other companies, its main purpose (hence the Apple investment) would be to produce iPhone displays.

Apple is set to deal Samsung yet another blow by snubbing its displays for all future iOS devices. According to a new report from the Korea Economic Daily, the Cupertino company will purchase panels from Sharp, LG Display, Japan Display, and AU Optronics instead.

Apple’s share price has plummeted this morning, following an earlier report that said the Cupertino company had cut iPhone 5 component orders due to weaker-than-expected demand. When the market opening on Monday morning, Apple stock dropped to $16.23, or 3.1%, to $504.07.

It seemed like Apple was coping well with the iPhone 5 demand, despite it being the company’s fastest-selling iPhone to date. Sure, pre-orders sold out within the first hour of availability, but those who were told they wouldn’t get their new smartphone until October have already begun receiving shipping notifications.

But iPhone 5 production may have hit a stumbling black. The handset’s new 4-inch display, which boasts in-cell touch technology that allows it to be incredible thin, it reportedly causing “significant production constraints” that mean Apple cannot produce the device fast enough.

The iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S’s Retina Displays are already ludicrously pixel packed at 326 ppi, but even so, that’s only enough pixels to make it so that the human eye can’t resolve them when the phone is held twelve inches away from your face.

Apple can do better, and maybe someday they will, thanks to Japan Display’s new technology which squeeze 651 pixels per inch into an LCD screen. Their latest display has a resolution of 1280 x 800, the same as the existing 13-inch MacBook Pro, but is only 2.3 inches across.

That’s just one ppi from a true pixel doubling, which Apple has done for iOS devices to maintain backwards compatibility amongst apps and UI elements. If Apple picked this technology up, they’d finally have a display that was “retina” in the truest sense of the term… albeit, at four times the impact on the GPU.

Source: Tech-On
Via: Gizmodo

While Apple chose to stick with the same 3.5-inch display for the iPhone 4S that it had previously employed in older iPhones, the Cupertino company looks certain to increase that for its iPhone 5. According to a source in Apple’s supply chain, both Hitachi and Sony have already begun shipping 4-inch LCD panels for a “new iOS device,” believed to be the sixth-generation iPhone.