OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 33

Samsung Electronics announced that it expects its first quarter earnings to be below market expectations - due to weakness in its display and memory businesses.

Samsung says that LCD prices have dropped more than expected and demand for its flexible OLED also declined. Analysts from Susquehanna Financial Group estimate that a weak smartphone market and a "dramatic" decline of Apple iPhone OLED orders caused Samsung Display's revenue to decline around 50% compared to Q4 2018.

A report from China suggests that Samsung sold over 500,000 units of its new flagship Galaxy S10 smartphones in China in only 7 days. it tok 30 days to achieve the same number of sales for Samsung's GS9 smartphone in 2018. Within two weeks of its launch, the GS10 is sold out in Hong Kong.

Reviews on Samsung's GS10 has been very positive, and Samsung expects to sell 40-45 million units in 2019.

CLSA estimates that Samsung's OLED shipments have declined 26% in Q1 2019 (compared to Q4 2018), as global handset shipments remain weak (especially in China) and shipments to Apple declined 60%.

CLSA says that SDC will post a 500 billion Won ($440 million USD) loss, compared to a 500 billion Won profit in Q4 2018 - due to the low OLED shipments, losses at the LCD business as panel prices fell 7% in the quarter and as the company finally started to recognize depreciation of its A4 OLED fab.

As Samsung, BOE and Visionox are already starting to produce foldable OLEDs (for Samsung Electronics, Huawei and Xiaomi and Nubia, respectively), AUO is not be left behind, and the Taiwan-based display maker announced it is working with clients to develop foldable OLEDs, with aims to start production in the second half of 2019.

AUO is developing an in-folding display (similar to Samsung's Galaxy Fold). According to CLSA, AUO is developing its foldable OLEDs in collaboration with Lenovo. AUO aims to produce these OLEDs in its 4.5-Gen AMOLED AFPD fab in Singapore - which commenced low-volume AMOLED production in 2013. AUO is currently producing mostly wearable glass-based OLEDs in its AFPD fab.

In January 2019 Xiaomi unveiled a video of its new prototype smartphone that uses a tri-foldable OLED display. According to a new report from China, Xiaomi plans to ship the device sometimes between April and June - with a price tag of $999.99.

If this is true, that's half the price of Samsung's Galaxy Fold (which will cost $1,980 in the US) and less than half of Huawei's Mate X (which will reportedly cost $2,600).

Huawei adopted AMOLED displays in its P20 and P20 Pro smartphones, using panels produced by both BOE and LG Display. According to reports from China, the smartphone maker decided to adopt SDC's AMOLEDs in its updated smartphones, the P30 and P30 pro which will be launched soon.

We already reported that Samsung aims to increase its OLED production and to be more aggressive with its pricing. It seems as if this effort bears fruit. In addition it could be that Huawei was not satisfied with some of the LGD display quality issues being reported by P20 users.

Last month Samsung unveiled its first foldable OLED device, the Galaxy Fold - with its inside-folding 7.3" 1536 x 2152 Infinity Flex AMOLED display. The GFold is not shipping yet - but according to Bloomberg, Samsung is already developing two more foldable devices.

One of the two devices will look like a clamshell phone (an inside-folding OLED, but with a different form factor) - and the second will fold outside, in a similar fashion to Huawei's Mate X. The clamshell phone will be unveiled towards the end of 2019, or early in 2019. The out-folding device seems to be closer to commercialization and Samsung has already produced prototypes as it considered using this design in the first generation Galaxy Fold.

In October 2018, during the company's OLED Forum in china, Samsung detailed its future OLED technology roadmap, highlighting its sensor integration technologies. Samsung's vision includes putting a fingerprint sensor, a camera, speaker (Sound on Display) and also Haptic capabilities - all under or inside the OLED display.

In the Galaxy S10, Samsung drilled a small hole in the AMOLED display around the camera module. This is quite an achievement, and Samsung's Mobile Communication VP Yang Byung-duk now ways that the company aims to develop a full-screen smartphone display that will put the camera under the OLED without a hole. Byung-duk says that this is a challenging technology - and it will take at least 3 years to develop.

Sony launched its Xperia 1, the world's first 4K OLED smartphone, at MWC 2019, and the company did not yet disclose the price or release date. Amazon now lists this new smartphone, with a $999.99 price tag (for the 128GB model). The shipping date is set at December 2019, but this is likely just a placeholder as Sony said it will ship the phone towards the end of spring (at around May).

The Xperia 1 features a tall 6.5-inch 21:9 3840x1664 AMOLED "CinemaWide" display which supportss HDR (BT.2020). The Xperia 1 also features a Snapdragon 855 chipset, 6GB of RAM, 64/128 GB of storage, a microSD slot and a triple camera. The phone is also waterproof (IP68) and it has a fingerprint sensor on the side.

Last month LG Electronics announced its G8 ThinQ with its 6.1" 1440x3120 Crystal Sound OLED. According to a new trademark filing, LG now aims to brand its CSO OLEDs as "Display Speaker".

A Crystal Sound OLED, or Display Speaker turns the flexible OLED display into high end speakers. This innovating OLED technology works for smartphones, TVs and also OLED lighting panels. In LG's trademark filing, it also hints that this technology will be used in future wearable displays.