BOE Display - Page 17

Back in early 2017 it was reported that Apple is in discussions with BOE Display to supply OLED displays for future iPhones. Up until now Samsung was the exclusive iPhone AMOLED supplier, but a new report from Japan suggests that BOE and Apple's talks are still ongoing.

In fact the Nikkei Asian Review says that Apple is "aggressively testing" BOE's flexible AMOLED displays. The NAR claims that Apple will decide whether to add BOE as a supplier by the end of 2019. Such a deal will be a great step forward for BOE toward its goal to become a leading AMOLED supplier.

DSCC updated its foldable OLED market forecasts, saying that it now expects the market to grow slower than it anticipated earlier this year. In 2019 DSCC sees 360,000 foldable panels produced in 2019, with less than 250,000 actual devices sold. By 2023, the market will grow to over 68 million units (a CAGR of 272%) generating over $8 billion in revenues.

Smartphones will remain the leading devices to adopt foldable OLEDs throughout the forecast period, and starting in 2020 DSCC sees clamshell designs with at least a 60% unit share. DSCC sees ultra-thin glass as becoming a significant player, with Samsung adopting SCHOTT UTG starting in 2020. Ultra-thin glass enables an aggressive folding radius, scratch resistance, hardness and a similar touch experience to current glass based displays.

In January 2019 China-based Hisense announced its dual-LCD ULED XD panel, that includes an monochrome inner LCD panel that acts as a two million dimming zones layer to boost the contrast.

In a trade show in China, HiSense demonstrated this panel again, and is apparently close to launching it as a product. The model number will be U9E and Hisense plans to sell it for CNY 17,999 (around $2600) for the 65" 4K model.

According to a new report from Korea, LG Electronics is in talks with China-based BOE to supply OLED panels for future smartphones -and replace LGE's current supplier - it's sister company LG Display.

The report suggests two reasons for LG's talk with BOE. First is LG's drive to cut costs as its mobile phone business is losing massive amounts of money. The second reason is that LG Display cannot supply enough panels for LG Electronics as it still struggles with low production yields.

BOE demonstrated a new AMOLED display that has a unique format - a 20:1 display (1209×63 mm) with a resolution of 3840×160 and relatively small bezels.

These kind of displays can be used for electronic shelf label applications - a field traditionally catered for by e-paper or E Ink displays due to their high efficiency and non volatility. E Ink displays are highly suited for these signage applications - but OLEDs can offer much higher image quality and colors so could suit some applications.

In February 2019 Huawei launched its first foldable smartphone, the Mate X with a 8" 2200x2480 foldable AMOLED display that folds outwards. Huawei said it will launch the Mate X by the end of June, but now the company says it is now planning to release it in September.

Huawei says that it needs more time to test the device and make sure it is durable. It is also possible that the US ban on Huawei is behind this decision.

China-based BOE Display demonstrated many OLED displays at SID 2019, including new flexible, foldable, rollable and automotive AMOLED displays. Here's a video showing the company's complete SID lineup:

BOE also demonstrated its 55" ink-jet printed OLED TV prototypes and the company's latest OLED microdisplays.

UBI Research says that 110 million AMOLED panels were produced and shipped in Q1 2019, a slight decrease of 0.4% from Q1 2018.

The top AMOLED producer is still of course Samsung Display, which produced 82 million units (75% market share). SDC's revenues were $5.09 billion, down from $5.86 billion in Q1 2018.

Samsung's Galaxy S10 smartphone family introduced the world's first OLED displays with round holes cut into the display to house the front cameras- which is seen as an improvement over notch-type displays.

Up until now Samsung Display was the only company that had the technology to create such displays, but now it is reported that China's BOE is gearing up to produce its own OLED displays with camera holes.

China-based BOE Display has a very ambitious OLED project, and the company unveiled new flexible and automotive OLEDs at SID 2019.

BOE demonstrated several new automotive OLED technologies including a 12.3" flexible OLED display for the main instrument panel which employs a new pixel compensation circuit technology apparently developed by BOE, which can improve the brightness uniformity of the display.