OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 75

Samsung announced that they sold over 38 million Galaxy Note and Note 2 smartphones since launching the original Galaxy Note in 2011 - those large "phablets" phones have been very successful for Samsung, and all of them use Super AMOLED displays. Samsung expects to sell over 10 million units of the recently announced Note 3.

The Galaxy Note 3 sports a 5.7" Full-HD Super AMOLED display (386 PPI), a 2.3 Quad-Core CPU (or a 1.9Ghz octa-core in some markets), 3 GB of RAM, 32/64GB of storage, a 13 MP camera (will be capable of 4K videos in some markets) and Android 4.3. It is smaller and lighter than the Note 2.

As expected, Samsung launched two new mobile devices today with Super AMOLED displays. First up is the Galaxy Note 3 that sports a 5.7" Full-HD Super AMOLED display (386 PPI), a 2.3 Quad-Core CPU (or a 1.9Ghz octa-core in some markets), 3 GB of RAM, 32/64GB of storage, a 13 MP camera (will be capable of 4K videos in some markets) and Android 4.3. Samsung managed to pack all this in a phone that is smaller and lighter than the Note 2.

The Galaxy Gear is Samsung's first smartwatch and it features a 1.63" 320x320 (275 PPI) Super AMOLED display, a 1.9 mp camera (can do 720p videos), 800Mhz processor, 4GB of storage, 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth 4, and a 315 mAh non-removeable battery. The watch will support third-party apps and 70 partners signed up to supply applications at launch.

DisplaySearch says that mobile phone display revenue will grow 55% in 2013 to $33.3 billion. The market is driven by rising smartphone display selling price and growing mobile phone shipments.

DisplaySearch also released revenue numbers per technology, and in 2013 AMOLED display will take the lead as they will account for 37% market share. LTPS LCDs will have 36.1% while a-Si LCDs will have 26.5%. Interestingly, it means that DisplaySearch estimates that mobile phone OLEDs alone will generate $12.3 billion in revenue in 2013. Earlier in 2013 they estimated that the whole OLED market will reach $11 billion in 2013. It's good to see them raise their estimates now!

According to the Korea Times, a Samsung executive (mobile VP Lee Young-hee) confirmed that the company will launch two new products on September 4 - the Galaxy Note 3 and the smartwatch Samsung has been working on for some time (which some say will be called the Galaxy Gear).

Galaxy Note II

We already knew the the Galaxy Note 3 will launch on September 4, but it's good to hear another confirmation. The Galaxy Gear, according to Young-hee, will not feature a flexible OLED display (which isn't surprising as Samsung will only start producing the panels in November and in limited capacity).

A few weeks ago we reported that DisplaySearch forecast that OLED material revenues will reach $529 million in 2013 - and will grow to $3.4 billion in 2017. Now DisplaySearch released more information, including this interesting chart, showing their OLED material sales forecast per application:

As you can see, virtually all the growth will come from OLED TV sales. For materials sold for mobile phones, materials will actually decline after 2014. This chart include materials used for emission and common layers. DisplaySearch forecasts that only 10 million OLED TV units will be shipped in 2017. This still means a low penetration into the TV market. Of course for the OLED market 10 million by 2017 TVs represents a rapid growth in the revenue.

Universal Display announced their financial results for Q2 2013. Revenues were $49.4 million and net income was $15.4 million - this was higher than expected and was driven by high green materials (emitter and host) sales to Samsung (green was finally adopted for the GS4). UDC says material sales grew 111% compared to Q2 2012 to $12.8 million, and royalty and license fees were up 37% (to $21.2 million, out of which $20 million were from SDC).

UDC said it expects full-year results to reach the high-end of its previous forecast - which was $110-125 million.

Samsung just sent out invitations for their Samsung Unpacked 2013 episode 2 event - which will take place on September 4 (7 PM in Germany). Check out the invitation below, it's highly likely they will unveil the Galaxy Note 3 phone:

In past months we had several reports and rumors with information on the Note 3 displays. Some say it will have a plastic-based flexible OLED while others claim it will have an LCD display. Some reports suggest that Samsung will actually release several Note 3 variants with different displays. We only have one month to wait, but my own estimate is that it will have a 6-inch "regular" Super AMOLED display.

AT&T now ships Nokia's Lumia 1020 - from $269. The Lumia 1020 is an imaging-focused Windows Phone 8 smartphone. It's got a 41-mp camera, OIS, BSI, lossless zoom, six Carl Zeiss lenses and xenon flash (stills) and LED flash (video). The display is a 4.5" AMOLED PureMotion HD+ panel (1280x768).

Update: the G2 is now official, and it sadly uses an IPS-LCD display

LG will launch their new flagship Android handset, the G2 on August 7th. Meanwhile, the company announced today an accessory for this phone, the QuickWindow case. This premium case includes a small window so the phone can display information when the case is closed (you'll have to swipe your finger to activate the display). LG calls the graphic interface itself QuickWindow UX, and it includes a clock, weather report, alarms, music and phone/messages notifications.

This is a neat idea, although it isn't new. Samsung offers a similar idea in their S View Cover case for the GS4. OLEDs have a clear advantage over LCDs here - as only lit pixels draw power, while in LCDs even if the rest of the display is black, the BLU unit still lights up the whole panel. So these kinds of ideas really make sense with an OLED display, not an LCD one. Is it possible that the G2 will adopt an OLED display?

Samsung released their audited results for Q2 2013 (preliminary results were released a couple of weeks ago) - the company generated revenues of 57.46 trillion won ($51.5 billion) and a net profit of 7.77 trillion won ($6.96 billion). This was a disappointment to investors as smartphone growth is slowing (mostly GS4 sales).

But there are some good news in that report for the OLED market. First of all, Samsung is reporting positive growth for OLED displays for high-end smartphones, and they expect this growth to be maintained in the second half of 2013. Samsung will focus on offering "differentiated smartphone displays" using new technologies such as flexible displays. They will also focus on enhancing OLED cost competitiveness and will expand the OLED product line-up and feature more sizes and high resolution displays.