In February 2018 Vivo demonstrated a new concept smartphone called the APEX, that had a almost completely bezel-less OLED display. Today Vivo launched its latest flagship smartphone the Vivo NEX S (and the lower-spec NEX A) which features this innovative design.

The Vivo NEX S has a 6.49" 1080x2316 (388 PPI) AMOLED display, and a pop-out front camera (there is no room for a camera as almost all the front is covered with the display. The NEX S also features an under-the-display fingerprint sensor, a strong chipset and 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The Vivo NEX A has a slower CPU, less memory - and a fingerprint reader on the back. Both phones will ship by the end of the month.

China-based OLED producer Visionox signed a long-term licensing and material purchase agreements with Universal Display. UDC will supply its phosphorescent OLED materials to Visionox. UDC did not disclose the details or financial terms of these agreements. This follows the evaluation agreement signed by UDC and Visionox in February 2018.

Visionox is producing PMOLEDs, AMOLEDs and flexible AMOLEDs, and the company demonstrated some very impressive displays at SID Displayweek last month. Last month Visionox announced that it has started to produce flexible OLEDs at its new 6-Gen fab in Hebei.

The Korea Herald says that Samsung Display signed an agreement to supply 6.9" OLEDs to Huawei for an upcoming large smartphone. This is the largest smartphone OLED that SDC has ever developed.

The Herald says that Chinese consumers want large phones as it is easier to write Chinese characters on larger screens. Huawei is the world's third-largest smartphone maker (with a 11.4% market share, according to Strategic Analytics).

DSCC updated its forecast for display equipment spending, saying that in 2018 OLED spending is expected to fall 28% compared to 2017 to $10.8 billion (while LCD spending will grow 22% to $11.4 billion). China-based display makers will account for 90% of all display related equipment spending in 2018.

2019 will see another down year for OLED spending that will drop 31% to $7.4 billion (LCD spending is also expected to fall by 32%). Chinese display makers will again lead in spending (77% of the market).

Apple-related rumors and reports never cease, only last week did we heard that Apple aims to use OLED displays in all of its 2019 iPhone models, and now it is reported that Apple is taking a conservative approach and readying itself to lower sales of its 2018 iPhones (that will be introduced in the fall).

The Nikkei Asian Review says that Apple approached suppliers and told them that component orders for the new iPhones will be lower by 20% compared to the iPhones launched in 2017. In 2017 Apple got ready to produce 100 million iPhone 8/8+/X before launching these phones, but now Apple expects to sell only 80 million units.

In January 2015 the EU launched the LOMID project to develop next-generation large-area OLED microdisplays, and in 2017 the partners in the project announced the production of a 1-inch diagonal 1200x1920 (2,300 PPI) 120Hz curved OLED microdisplay.

The Fraunhofer FEP demonstrated this panel at SID 2018, as you can see in the video above. The institute also demonstrated a new design which uses two such panels and special optics to provide double the resolution for each eye.

DSCC says that Samsung Display's OLED utilization has started to improve as it is starting to produce new OLED displays for new smartphones by Samsung, Apple and other makers.

SDC's utilization rates started to improve in May 2018, with the rigid A2 OLED fab expected to exceed 80% in June. At 100% yields, the A2 can produce 175,000 monthly substrates. DSCC says that 5.5-inch to 6-inch rigid OLEDs cost will fall to $23 in Q3 2018, with the price premium over LTPS LCDs will be around $5. DSCC says that at such a small gap they expect demand for rigid OLEDs will remain strong.

China-based Royole announced that it started volume production in its Quasi-6-Gen (5.5-Gen, most likely) flexible OLED production fab in Shenzhen. In full capacity (45,000 monthly substrate) and at high yields Royole will be able to produce about 50-million flexible smartphone panels in its new fab.

Royole says that it will be able to produce "full-flexible" (which means foldable and rollable) displays as it is producing the world's thinnest panels at 0.01 mm with a bending radius of 1 mm.

During a presentation at SID Displayweek 2018, Coherent showed a nice chart that summarizes the performance difference between LCDs, OLEDs and Micro-LED displays.

Micro-LEDs have many advantages - including much higher efficiencies and brightness, when compared to both LCDs and OLEDs. The main challenges with Micro-LED is the high costs in the production processes currently used, but many believe that Micro-LED displays will find commercial success in TVs, VR, microdisplays and wearable devices.

US-based Amorphyx develops amorphous-metals based display backplanes, which can be used to drive displays using quantum-tunneling. The company says that such backplanes will enable extremely fast conductivity and thus "unlimited" refresh rates.

Producing such backplanes is also said to be easy as it uses less layers compared to TFT backplanes, using its Amorphous Metal Non-Linear Resistor (AMNR) technology. AMNR backplanes are suitable for LCDs, OLEDs and e-paper displays. This is still an early-stage technology, but the company demonstrated some prototypes at SID and it will be interested to see if this technology can progress in future years.