2017 had seen a year of tension between Apple and Samsung, with the former having considering ditching its supplier of OLED panels for someone else, who happens to be LG. This year, LG will be producing all of Apple’s OLED displays, one of which will be debuted on the new Apple X to be launched this year.
LG Display will be making the deal with Apple to be the official supplier of OLED panels starting the second half of 2018. While this should be taken with a pinch of salt, the two large companies have been in talks since last year over a possible partnership. Based on the new report, LG will be producing somewhere around 15 million and 16 million panels as of 2018. Having said that, Samsung will also be producing a majority of panels for Apple for upcoming iPhones as the company does sell more than 200 million smartphones a year.
As mentioned by CNBC in their report, LG will be specializing in selling larger displays to Apple, that will range from 5.8-inches to 6-inches. There are speculations that LG will be the display supplier for the upcoming iPhone X 6.5-inch iPhone. LG, however, does not have the strong manufacturing prowess that Samsung has, with LG only able to produce 6 million panels in a month, while Samsung can produce well over 10 million. The next iPhones that have been rumoured to release this year, are a 5.8-inch iPhone, a 6.1-inch iPhone as well as one with a 6.5-inch display as well. Considering Apple has been under fire lately slowing down performance of past iPhones for battery life, the company will be looking to add larger batteries to their newer iPhones as well.
Slash Gear reports that with the decline of LCD panels in the market, Apple is looking to integrate more OLED panels into its iPhones; ideally, the flagships, with the budget options utilizing LCD screens. Apple is big on OLED technology as the company has already invested in a 2.5G OLED production in Taiwan, that will be used to make new features exclusive to its OLED.
As for LG, the company did face criticism for producing the OLED panels seen in the Pixel 2XL, which saw a constant shift in colour when tilted, along with an initial colour palette that was quite pale. But Google did purposefully request for LG to make such panels, as developers needed a device with colour-accurate representation in order to best test their apps. Since LG is good at following the instructions given to them, Apple should have no problem in partnering up with the Korean giant.
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