A few days ago we reported that BOE started to produce flexible OLED displays at its Chengdu B7 fab, and yesterday the company held an official ceremony during which it demonstrated its first batch of flexible OLED panels, and delivered samples to representatives from Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and others Chinese phone makers - although its not clear whether any of these are already acquiring panels.
The first panels produced by BOE are 5.5" in size with a resolution of 1440x2560 (QHD) - these are smartphone panels that will be adopted in an edge-type configuration. BOE says that its production line is highly automated, and BOE's panels come with a touch layer already laminated. The whole panel is just 0.03 mm thick.
BOE's B7 fab is the company's first flexible AMOLED line. The full capacity is 48,000 substrates per month, but this will only be achieved in the first half of 2019. Earlier reports suggested that BOE's capacity will be very low, around 10,000 panels per month, but CLSA estimates that BOE will ship around 2 million panels by the end of the year as it can already produce 16,000 monthly substrates (of course we do not know the fab's production yields yet).
The total cost of the B7 fab is estimated at 46.5 billion Yuan (almost $7 billion USD). In addition to this fab in Chengdu, in October 2016 BOE announced another 6-Gen OLED fab, in Mianyang. The Miangyang fab will have a similar capacity (45,000 sheets per month) and will enter production in 2019. Total investment in the Miangyang fab is estimated at 46.5 billion yuan as well.
