OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 42

According to reports from Korea, pre-orders for the Galaxy S9 in Korea are 30% lower compared to the pre-orders of Samsung's Galaxy S8 in 2017. Yonhap news says that Korea's three largest carriers distributed only 180,000 GS9 phones, while at the same time last year these three companies distributed 260,00 GS8 phones.

Samsung did not yet disclose any pre-sales data. The GS9 has a flexible 5.8" 1440x2960 (570 PPI) Super AMOLED display (6.2", 529 PPI, on the S9 Plus). DisplayMate says that this display is the best mobile display ever tested, surprassing in quality the 5.8" flexible AMOLED used in the iPhone X.

Samsung introduced its Galaxy S9 flagship phone a couple of days ago, with its flexible 5.8" 1440x2960 (570 PPI) Super AMOLED display (6.2", 529 PPI, on the S9 Plus).

Display measurement experts from DisplayMate already tested the new display (with a pre-production GS9), and published a comprehensive report. As expected, Samsung continues to improve its OLED displays, and the GS9 again is announced by DisplayMate to be the world's best ever mobile display, better than the iPhone X OLED.

China's Visionox introduced a new AMOLED display, a 6.21" 2160x1080 panel that has a notch-type design (similar to the OLED used in Apple's iPhone X).

China's smartphone maker Doogee used this display in its new flagship Doogee V smartphone. The display enabled Doogee to achieve a very high screen-to-body ratio of 94.85%. The front of this phone has no physical buttons, and Doogee implemented an under-the-OLED fingerprint sensor under this 6.21" AMOLED.

Vivo demonstrated a new concept device called the APEX, that includes several new innovative technologies. The most impressive is the front display, which is a 5.99" 2160×1440 flexible OLED display that is almost completely covers the front of the phone - the top and side bezels measure just 1.8 mm and the bottom is 4.3 mm.

This is an impressive design - but it causes some problems - for example there is no room for a selfie camera, and Vivo solved this via a pop-out camera unit (which looks like the popping flash units in pocket cameras). The design also leaves no room for a speaker - and Vivo designed a new Screen SoundCasting technology which vibrates the whole display, similar in a way to LG's CrystalSound TVs.

Display analyst firm DSCC posted an interested article stating that the latest range of bezel-less LCDs are very similar to the high-end flexible OLEDs in form (not in contrast or image quality), to the point that mid-smartphone makers find it hard to justify the extra cost of a flexible OLEDs. The following table graphs shows the current price gap between flexible OLEDs and LCDs:
While a flexible OLED does enable a higher display-to-body ratio (82.9% on the iPhone X, for example), a high end LCD comes pretty close - the Oppo F5 reaches 78.1%.

Financial analysts from CLSA released an interesting short report about OLED demand in China. According to IDC, OLED smartphone shipments in China was down 6% in Q4 2017 (compared to Q4 2016) to 36 million units - in line with total Chinese smartphone weakness (-8% in the same period). Total OLED smartphone shipments in 2017 reached 128 million, up 8% compared to 2016. OLED penetration was up only 1% (to 15%) in 2017.

CLSA sees lower demand in 2018 and 2019 compared to early estimates - 175 million in 2018 and 225 million in 2019. That's 11% (2018) and 20% (2019) lower than CLSA's earlier estimates. CLSA is less optimistic than before regarding the ramp-up at Tianma, Truly and CSoT.

Market research company Sigmaintell estimates that China-based display makers shipped 9.8 million OLED displays in 2017, mostly for smartphone applications. Everdisplay was the largest producer in terms of units, shipping 3.8 million displays (enjoying large orders from Huawei and Hisense), while Visionox was the top vendor in terms of display area shipped (30,000 square meters, out of a total 78,000 sqm produced in China in 2017).

Looking into 2018, Sigmaintell sees a large increase in production volume in 2018. Visionox landed orders from ZTE and Xiaomi and is expanding its production capacity, and BOE is also expected to increase shipments from its flexible 6-Gen AMOLED fab that will enter full capacity in Q2 2018. Finally, Tianma is also expected to increase production having won orders from Asustek Computer.

We already heard several reports that Apple is reducing its OLED display orders from Samsung (from an estimated 40 million in Q1 2018 to 20 million) - following lower than expected iPhone X sales.

New reports from Korea now suggest that Samsung display also announced to its own suppliers that it will not order any more parts for the iPhone X in H2 2018. It could mean that Apple is aiming to introduce new OLED phones in 2018, but the Korean reports say that it is also likely that Apple is not looking to introduce a new OLED iPhone in 2018 at all.

Samsung Electronics reported its results for Q4 2017, with a record quarterly profit of $11.2 billion driven by strong demand for memory chips and high-end displays. Samsung Display reports increased OLED shipments for premium smartphones.

Looking at Q1 2018, SDC says that its OLED business is likely to be affected be declining demand due to seasonality and increased competition from LTPS LCD. For the the whole of 2018, SDC expects OLED to increase its penetration in the smartphone industry, and the company aims to introduce new premium applications such as foldable displays and OLEDs for the automotive market.

In the last few weeks we heard several reports that Apple is seeing lower iPhone X sales than initially expected. Japan's Nikkei Asian Review now claims that Apple slashed its iPhone X production target for Q1 2018 from 40 million units to only 20 million.

Asian Review also says that the lower sales could result in a delay to Apple's plans to introduce OLED displays in its new iPhone models in 2018. It was indeed reported last week that Apple may cancel its plans to introduce a new 5.8" OLED iPhone in 2018, and only launch the larger 6.5" OLED iPhone (with screens provided by LG Display).