OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 19
Samsung Display plans to start producing rollable AMOLEDs by the end of 2021
Samsung Display confirmed that the company is developing rollable OLED displays, and that it will start mass producing such displays later in 2021. It is likely that the first customer for these displays will be Samsung Electronics.
Samsung has been developing rollable OLED technologies for many years, the demonstration above is from 2016. And of course it makes sense for Samsung to release these displays this year as other companies are already ahead of it - LG Electronics is set to release its first rollable smartphone in 2021 using BOE panels, and TCL/CSoT also recently demonstrated rollable OLEDs.
Samsung: demand for OLED panels was strong in Q4 2020, will remain so in 2021
Samsung Electronics reported its Q4 2020 financial results, with revenues of $55 billion and net income of $5.84 billion (less than expected by analysts). The company says that the lower revenues were due to a weakness in the memory and consumer devices businesses, offset by the best quarter ever for Samsung Display.
Samsung expects its OLED business to improve in the next quarter as major customers increase adoption of OLED displays. Looking ahead to 2021, Samsung sees increased demand for OLEDs for high-end and mid-range smartphones. The company aims to diversify into markets such as laptops, tablets and automotive applications.
trinamiX announces an under-the-OLED 3D imaging sensor
Germany-based trinamiX, a subsidiary of BASF, announced that it has developed an under-the-OLED 3D imaging sensor. This technology can enable high performance face authentication while working behind the display.
trinamiX's technology captures 2D images, 3D images and also performs what the company refers to as a "live skin" test that cannot be tricked by a full-face mask, a 2D image printout or even a 3D sculpture. The hardware consists of just a standard CMOS sensor and a near-infrared light projector.
Samsung Display developed a new AMOLED stack that is 16% more efficient
Samsung Display announced that it has employed new materials in its latest OLED stack that enables the display to be 16% more efficient compared to its currently OLEDs. The first phone to adopt the new OLED materials will be the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
SDC did not reveal much about the new materials beyond saying that the new architecture "speeds up electron flows in the display’s organic layers". SDC says it uses a new OLED material, which seems to have been developed in-house (although SDC also says it has been 'closely collaborating with global material companies' to increase its competitive edge). SDC holds over 5,000 OLED material patents.
Will LG Electronics abandon the smartphone market?
According to a report from the Korea Herald, LG Electronics is considering the future of its Smartphone business, and the company's CEO sent a message to staff that says that several options are being considered, including the sale, withdrawal and downsizing the smartphone business.
LG Electronics has lost around $4.5 billion in its smartphone business over the past five years, as competition, especially from China, is strong. In Q3 2020 LG Electronics shipped 6.5 million phones, down from 7.2 million in Q3 2019. LG's global smartphone market share is around 2%.
LG teases its 2021 rollable OLED smartphone
In July 2020 LG Electronics announced that it aims to be the first company to introduce a rollable OLED smartphone - as early as the beginning of 2021. The company has now released a new teaser, showing the upcoming smartphone in action:
Unlike other rollable smartphone designs, LG's phone opens up on the wide size of the phone, to become an tablet form factor. LG did not give any information, specification or release date on what could be the world's first rollable phone.
TCL / CSoT shows its rollable AMOLED displays at CES 2021
In October 2020 TCL's CSoT demonstrated some new rollable OLED technologies, and today at CES the company published this nice video you see below that again demonstrates new rollable OLEDs:
TCL first shows a rollable smartphone, that uses a 7.8-inch AMOLED that rolls into a 6.7-inch one. The display features a bending radius of 3 mm and CSoT says it can withstand up to 100,000 sliding cycles.
LG's OLED sales continue to improve as demand for TV and smartphone panel increases
Omdia says that in 2020, LG Display's OLED TV sales surpassed LGD's LCD TV sales, for the first time. LGD's OLED TV sales were 53% of the company's total TV sales (up from 33% in 2019).
Omdia says that it expects LG's total OLED display sales (including TVs, mobiles and automotive displays) to reach 10 trillion Won in 2021 (around $9.15 billion USD).
The Elec: Samsung will be the exclusive supplier of Apple's LTPO iPhone AMOLED displays in 2021
A report from Korea suggests that Samsung will be the exclusive supplier for Apple' LTPO AMOLED displays used in the next iPhone devices. Apple will adopt LTPO, according to the report, in the two higher-end modules in 2021. These models will also support a 120Hz refresh rate.
It was already reported that Apple aims to adopt LTPO in future iPhone displays. It was assumed that LG Display will also be able to produce such displays, but apparently that will only happen in 2022. Samsung already produces such smartphone displays, adopted in the Note 20 Ultra (Samsung brands this technology as Adaptive Frequency or hybrid oxide and polycrystalline silicon, or HOP).
Omdia: 62.8% of all smartphones sold in Q4 2020 use OLED displays
Market research company Omdia says that at the end of 2020, 62.8% of all smartphones use OLED panels, while 31.8%, use LCDs (I'm not sure about the rest of the smartphones, maybe some use E Ink displays but not all the rest of the missing 5.4% in Omdia's summary.
Omdia further estimates that SDC's smartphone OLED panel sales will exceed $5 billion in Q1 2021, a 30% increase over Q1 2020.
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