OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 55

According to IHS, a 5" Full-HD AMOLED display now costs $14.3 (down from $17.1 in Q4 2015) - and now costs less than a similar LCD display ($14.7, down from $15.7 in Q4 2015). This is the first time an AMOLED costs less than an LCD.

IHS says that to make a 5" FHD LCD, the materials costs are $9.2 and non-material costs (including deprecation) s $5.4. For an AMOLED display, materials cost $7.2 and non material costs amount to $7.2.

ETNews says that Apple chose Samsung Display as the company's primary OLED supplier, and the two companies signed an official contract. Flexible OLED supply for Apple's next iPhone will begin in 2017.

ETNews further claims that other display makers are fighting to become Apple's second OLED supplier. There's a high chance that LG Display will be chosen, but the company has not yet been able to secure enough production capacity. Sharp/Foxconn and Japan Display are competing with LGD for Apple's OLED business.

Samsung announced that the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge are selling at a "record" pace. Pre-orders for the new flagship phones, so far, has been 2.5 times higher than those for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

UK retailer Carphone Warehouse reported a 200% increase in GS7 pre-orders compared to the GS6.

IHS performed a teardown of Samsung's Galaxy S7, and the company estimates that Samsung's latest flagship costs $255 to build - with a bill of materials (BOM) of $249.55. The retail price of the S7 is around $670 (Verizon, US).

The most expensive component is the application processor which is based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chipset and is estimated at $62. The second most expensive part is SDC's 5.1" 2560x1440 (577 PPI) Super AMOLED display - which is estimated at $55. IHS tested the flat S7 and not the S7 edge - but in the table they released (see above) they say that display is Dual Edge display - which is a mistake.

Sonavation announced a new technology that enables to embed an ultrasound fingerprint sensor behind an OLED display. Using this solution, mobile phone makers could enlarge the display area of the mobile device, as there will no no need for a separate fingerprint sensor.

Sonavation says that their "3D biometric ultrasound technology" is the only fingerprint authentication solution that offers complex-enough imaging through a full stack display.

ZTE had a large booth at MWC 2016, and the Chinese phone maker introduced and demonstrate three OLED phones. All these phones sport SDC-made Super AMOLED displays.

First up we have the Axon Mini, an Android 5 smartphone that features a 5.2" FHD (424 PPI) Super AMOLED display, an octa-core CPU, 13 MP camera, 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage and Dual-SIM support. The Axon Mini was actually introduced a few months ago, but only now did ZTE provide the specifications.

LG's mobile division Chief, Cho Juno, said that LG has big hopes for the new G5 smartphone, and hopes to sell at least 10 million G5 phones by the end of the year - which will be a new record for LG.

The G5 uses an LCD display, but Cho says that LG could start using OLED displays for its flagship phones by the second half of 2017. LG will not purchase panels from Samsung Display, but it is waiting for LG Display to start producing OLEDs for mobile phones.

Acer has two new OLED phones. First up is the Liquid Jade 2, announced during MWC 2016 last week. This is an Android 6 smartphone that features a large 5.5" FHD Super AMOLED display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a microSD slot and Dual-SIM.

The second phone is the Jade Primo - a Windows 10 smartphone that features a large 5.5" Full-HD AMOLED display, an octa-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, a 21MP camera and Dual SIM. The Jade Primo will ship by the end of March 2016.

According to a leaked image on Weibo, Vivo's upcoming XPlay5 phone has a dual-edge display, similar to the flexible OLED displays used in Samsung's Edge phones (such as the recently announced Galaxy S7 Edge).

According to the Chinese press, Xiaomi and Huawei also aim to release new phones soon with similar edge displays. This is an interesting development as usually Samsung Display only ships the newest displays to Samsung Electronics - and in any case SDC's flexible OLED production is in rather short supply as it is.

At MWC 2016, Gionee showcased several mobile phones, and the center stage was taken by two AMOLED phones. First up is the new S8 which is a large smartphone that features a 5.5" FHD AMOLED display, a quad-core CPU, a 16MP rear camera (and a 8MP front one), 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, microSD slot, Dual-SIM, Android v6.0.1 and 3D touch. The S8 is expected to ship next month.

The second phone is the Marathon M5 Plus - a large smartphone that features a 6" FHD AMOLED display, a large 5020 mAh battery, an octa-core 1.3Ghz CPU, 3GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, Dual-SIM, Android 5.1 and a fingerprint sensor. The M5 Plus is already shipping.