OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news

Last updated on Wed 17/07/2024 - 10:45

What is an OLED display?

An OLED display uses a new technology called OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diodes). OLED screens are brighter, more efficient, thinner and feature better refresh rates and contrast than LCD or Plasma.

OLEDs are made by placing thin films of organic (carbon based) materials between two conductors. When an electrical current is applied, a bright light is emitted. Since the OLED materials emit light, a backlight is not required (unlike LCDs).

OLEDs in mobile phones

Mobile phones that boast OLED screens are rapidly becoming more prevalent, with over 500 million AMOLED screens annually - mostly to satisfy demand from mobile phones. Samsung has been using AMOLEDs in its high-end phones for many years, and most phone makers are also adopting OLED displays (including Apple, LG, Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Lenovo, Motorola, and others).

OLED displays are advancing quickly, and today smartphone AMOLED displays outperform LCDs in all parameters - except the price which is still at a premium.

For a complete list of smartphones and mobile phones with OLED displays, click here.

Further reading

UBI: OLED shipments increase in Q3 2024, mostly driven by increased shipments by LG Display and Everdisplay

UBI Research says that shipments of small OLED panels rose to 247 million units, up 7.8% from the previous quarter (and up 32.6% from Q3 2023), mainly driven by increase in shipments by LG Display and Everdisplay.

LG Display shipped 17.6 million smartphones panels in the quarter, up 64% from Q2 and 12.2 million wearable OLED panels (up 147%) - thanks to strong shipments to Apple. In total LGD's AMOLED shipments grew 74% quarter to quarter, and 115% from last year. UBI expects LGD to continue and increase its shipments in Q4. The company is almost at full capacity and UBI says the company may decide to expand the capacity at one of its existing 6-Gen fabs.

Read the full story Posted: Dec 12,2024

Omdia: Over 1 billion AMOLED panels will ship in 2025

Omdia released its latest OLED market forecasts, and the company says the small/medium (1-inch to 8-inch) OLED shipments will surpass one billion for the first time in 2025. 

In the smartphone market, Omdia says that there has been significant growth, mainly driven by Chinese OLED producers (BOE, CSoT, Visionox, Tianma and Everdisplay). In addition to the growth in smartphone displays, OLED are expanding into new applications, including AR/VR and automotive displays.

Read the full story Posted: Dec 07,2024

DSCC: The foldable smartphone market will stagnate in 2024 and 2025, fast growth will continue in 2026

According to DSCC, the foldable smartphone display market has declined for the first time in Q3 2024, and the company sees the market entering a flat state in 2024 and 2025. The market has grown fast (at least 40% per year) since 2019, but according to DSCC it will grow only 5% in 2025 and will decline by 4% in 2025. Demand will remain stable at around 22 million units per year.

DSCC says that Samsung is seeing slower than expected demand for its Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone, around 10% lower than the Z Flip 5 released in 2023. Almost all of Samsung's demand is in the Korean and Europrean markets. Huawei has also placed lower than expected orders for foldable OLEDs for the second half of 2024, due to the late introduction of the Mate X6 and Pocket 3 devices compared to the 2023 launch dates. The demand for its tri-foldable Mate XT is lower than expected as well. 

Read the full story Posted: Dec 03,2024

Huawei launches the Mate 70 smartphone family, the Mate X6 foldable and a new tablet - all with high end AMOLED displays

Huawei announced several new devices yesterday, all with AMOLED displays. We'll start with the Mate X6, a foldable smartphone that offers a 7.93" 120Hz 2240x2440 foldable LTPO AMOLED display, and a 6.45" 120Hz 1080x2440 LTPO AMOLED cover display.

Huawei Mate X6 photo

Second is Huawei's new Mate 70 smartphone family, with 3 models. The basic Mate 70 has a 6.7" 2500 nits 120Hz 1216x2688 LTPO AMOLED display, while the 70 Pro and 70 Pro+ both sport a larger 6.9" 1316x2832 LTPO AMOLED displays. The interesting Mate 70 RS Ultimate edition that has a 6.9" 120Hz 3,500 nits 1316x2832 tandem LTPO AMOLED.

Read the full story Posted: Nov 27,2024

The US ITC decides that BOE infringes upon Samsung's OLED patent, does not ban panel imports yet

Samsung Display and BOE are fighting a legal battle in the US, as Samsung wishes to halt the import of BOE OLED displays (such as the ones used by Apple in the upcoming iPhone 4 SE smartphone, according to reports) saying that BOE infringes upon Samsung's patents. BOE, meanwhile, together with other OLED makers in China, answered with a motion of their own, to dismiss an SDC AMOLED patent

Samsung Galaxy S23 FE photo

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has now ruled that BOE indeed infringed upon Samsung's OLED patents. However the ITC rejected Samsung's request to ban the import of BOE's displays into the US. Samsung asked to re-examine the decision and the final verdict on issue will be given on March 2025.

Read the full story Posted: Nov 18,2024

Samsung Electronics to order smartphones OLED panels from Tianma as SDC's cannot produce enough to satisfy demand

Yesterday we reported that Samsung Display aims to increase its small-sized and mid-sized AMOLED panels production in 2025 by 10.25% to 475 million panels. It was understood that Samsung hopes to sell more foldable OLED panels and tablet OLED panels.

Samsung Galaxy M55s photo

Today we hear another report that Samsung Display's capacity is totally booked, and the company cannot supply enough smartphone OLED to Samsung Electronics. It is said that Samsung Electronics will order some AMOLED smartphone displays from Tianma to be used in its low-end ranges, the Galaxy M and Galaxy F smartphones.

Read the full story Posted: Nov 14,2024

Huawei expected to order 61 million smartphones OLED panels this year, up 81% from 2023

According to reports, Huawei is enjoying high demand for its AMOLED smartphones in 2024, and it is expected to order 61 million AMOLED panels by the end of the year - up 81% over 2023 (33.7 million).

Huawei Pura 70 smartphones photos

Huawei suffered from US sanctions in 2019 that drastically decreased its smartphone sales, but in 2023 it has returned to the smartphone market in force, and now it is enjoying very high demand for its smartphones.

Read the full story Posted: Nov 10,2024

BOE develops new under-the-OLED camera technology, to supply it to ZTE's Nubia and Red Magic flagship smartphones

BOE technology announced that it developed a new under-the-display OLED camera solution, to enable full-screen smartphone OLED displays with higher quality cameras than before. The company held a ceremony together with ZTE's Nubia and Red Magic smartphone brands, saying that it will supply the display and camera solutions to flagship smartphones from these two brands soon, the Nubia Z70 Ultra and the Red Magic 10 Pro.

BOE says that the new AMOLED displays adopt several innovative technologies, such as SIP ultra-narrow bezels, COP packaging - and the new under-the-OLED camera. The new technology achieves a full 430 PPI resolution for the OLED display including in the camera area, and the smartphones will offer a 95.3% screen-to-body ratio (as there's no notch or punch-hole). 

Read the full story Posted: Nov 06,2024

Apple reportedly established four new display research labs in China, aiming to expand its OLED supply chain in China

According to industry reports, Apple recently established four display research labs in China, in Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Shanghai. 

Apple iPhone SE 3 photo

Apple has reportedly formed an alliance with China's leading OLED makers, as the company gets ready to deploy OLED panels in its laptops and tablets. Apple is interested in diversifying its supply chain and not rely exclusively on Samsung Display and LG Display for its smartphone and IT AMOLED panels. The main goal of the new research labs is to test OLED panels produced by Chinese display makers, and evaluate and compare them to LG's and Samsung's OLEDs.

Read the full story Posted: Nov 02,2024

BOE launches its Q10 AMOLED display, receives DisplayMate's highest ever rating

BOE launched a new flexible AMOLED display, branded as Q10 AMOLED, that has a new OLED stack and delivers increased performance - the company said that compared to its previous flagship OLED stack, it enhances the peak brightness by 12.5%, the lifetime by 33%, and it reduces the power consumption by 10%. The company also says the color saturation and response time is increased.

The new Q10 display will debut at three smartphones, the OnePlus 13, OPPO Find X8 and Vivo iQOO 13. That specific screen is a 6.8" 3168x1440 (510 PPI) 120Hz LTPO AMOLED. DisplayMate tested the new display, and says it is the world's highest performing mobile display ever, seting or matching 21 performance records. It is the first display to receive DisplayMate's A++ rating.

Read the full story Posted: Oct 17,2024