OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 54

We heard several reports in the past few months, all claiming that Samsung is working on a foldable phone, to be released in 2017. SamMobile today posted that the new phone will be called the Galaxy X, and the foldable display will be a 4K diamond-pentile one.

Foldable OLED concept (2013)

According to SamMobile, Samsung will release five "flagship" phones in 2017 - the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Edge, the Galaxy Note 7 and Note 7 edge - and the Galaxy X. Except the Galaxy X (which will, as we said, have a 4K display), all the rest of the phones will use 2.5K displays.

The following premium article takes a look at the current markets for OLED displays - including smartphones, wearables, VR / AR, mobile PCs and TVs. We will then summarize OLED market forecasts by leading analysts.

In recent weeks, we heard very strong indicators from OLED equipment and component makers. Coherent, Orbotech, Colnatec and MagnaChip all reported significant OLED orders, and are very optimistic about the OLED market going forward.

Those suppliers report sales mostly to Korea, of course, but also to Japanese and Chinese display makers, as these new players ramp up their OLED production and begin to compete with Samsung and LGD.

MagnaChip reported its financial results for Q1 2016, and the company says the demand for AMOLED drivers is "exceptionally strong". There was a surge in AMOLED display driver demand in Q4 and this carried over to Q1 - and continues to gather momentum.

MagnaChip's AMOLED revenue in Q1 grew 42% from Q1 2015 and 63% from Q4 2015. This was driven from demand by smartphone makers in China. Magnachip believes it is the world's second largest AMOLED display driver supplier, and its AMOLED drivers has been designed into 28 smartphone models. The company is also starting to produce AMOLED drivers for two VR headset makers.

A China-based company (maybe called Interim, it's not clear) has demonstrated a new fully-bendable smartphone. The company claims that this smartphone has a "graphene-based screen", 5.2" in size.

It's not clear what the meaning of a "graphene-based" display is, in this case. While graphene can theoretically be used to make light emitting devices, it's highly unlikely that this is the case here. My guess would be that this is a flexible OLED display (could also be a flexible LCD, but that's unlikely) with a graphene-based touch panel.

IHS say that the lower prices of AMOLEDs and the improvements in production is attracting more device makers to adopt AMOLED panels in their products. This leads to rapid increase in AMOLED shipments.

IHS sees 395 million AMOLEDs shipped in 2016 (this seems a bit optimistic) - an increase of 40% compared to 2015. Revenues will increase by 25% to reach $15 billion. AMOLED penetration in smartphone displays will rise from 17% in 2015 to 21% in 2016. IHS says that "AMOLED is becoming the shiniest spot in the flat-panel display industry".

Samsung announced its financial results for Q1 2016 with profit rising 12% (from Q1 2015) to reach 6.68 trillion won (about $3.4 billion USD). The good results (highest profits since Q2 2014) were mostly because of the early and successful launch of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge.

Samsung Display saw its OLED earnings improve - driven by the launch of new high-end products (SDC probably mean its flexible OLEDs) and increase shipments. Samsung says that its OLED shipments "increased by mid-single% QoQ".

Last month ETNews reported that that Apple chose Samsung Display as the company's primary OLED supplier for its next-gen iPhone, and the two companies signed an official contract - with Flexible OLED supply for Apple's next iPhone to begin in 2017.

Yesterday Yonhap News, another Korean news agency, confirmed the story, and added some new details. This is still not official of course (SDC declined to comment), but according to Yonhap Samsung Display agreed to supply 100 million 5.5" AMOLED panels to Apple per year, for about $2.6 billion - with shipment starting to 2017. Apple will maintain this contract for at least three years.

Last week Sharp agreed to sell a two-thirds stake to Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) for $3.5 billion. According to Digitimes Research, Foxconn and Sharp's post-acquisition focus will be on OLEDs, and out of the total investment $1.8 billion will be allocated for OLED technology.

Foxconn aims to start producing IGZO-based OLEDs for smartphones in 2018 (probably they aim to become Apple's 2nd OLED supplier) and then to start developing larger OLEDs too. Digitimes layers our Foxconn's plans - 3 million tablet/notebook panels in 2021 and 10.4 million panels in 2025. In 2021 Foxconn will also start producing OLED TV panels - 252,000 panels in 2021 and 7.2 million panels in 2025.

In early 2016 we heard reports that Samsung is aiming to introduce its first foldable phone in 2016 - earlier than the planned 2017 launch. But new reports from Korea suggest that while SDC will indeed start producing foldable OLEDs in late 2016, Samsung Electronics will release the actual device in 2017 - perhaps this will be the Galaxy S8?

Foldable OLED concept (2013)

The reports further says that the display will be a 5" smartphone when closed and a 7" tablet when opened. SDC and Samsung Electronics both have several technical challenges to overcome before a foldable smartphone is mass produced - but the companies believe they will manage to solve those challenges and achieve mass production before the end of the year.

KGI Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that Apple's 2017 iPhone will have a radical new design - curved panels on the device's front and back, glass covers (or perhaps plastic or ceramic, it is not decided yet). According to KGI, the iPhone 7 will sport a 5.8" AMOLED display.

Kuo says that it is likely that the 5.8" iPhone will be a replacement for the current iPhone 6+ (5.5" LCD) - but if Apple won't be able to secure enough OLED panels, it may choose to release two models, one with LCD and a premium one with an OLED display.