OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news

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.

Rain Technology announced a new technology, called OLED Switchable Privacy, that is designed to protect OLED displays. Rain Technology says that its privacy technology already shipped in millions of LCD laptops and other displays, and is now ready for OLED displays for the first time.

OLED Switchable Privacy is embedded in the display panel smartphones, tablets or laptops, directing and controlling light from the display, thus allowing enterprises, consumers and application developers to hone unprecedented levels of automated visual security. 

DSCC says that shipments of Apple's iPhone 16 series were 8% higher in the first month compared to the shipments of Apple''s iPhone 15 series last year. As Apple continues to target emerging markets, DSCC expects Apple to increase sales of entry level and older iPhones, including the iPhone 13, 14, and 15 series.

Interestingly, a couple of weeks ago we reported that according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo the first-week demand for Apple's new iPhones is lower than expected, with total demand of only 37 million units - lower by 13% compared to the demand for the iPhone 15 a year ago. It remains to be seen whether demand picked up later in September.

According to a report from Korea, Samsung is progressing with its rollable OLED development project, and the company aims to launch its first rollable smartphone in 2025. When fully opened, the phone will sport a very large 12.4" display. Interestingly, Samsung apparently will implement an under-the-display camera solution.

Samsung's acceleration of its rollable phone project is seen as the Korean device maker's response to Huawei's tri-folding smartphone, the Mate XT. It is seen that this was an embarrassment for Samsung, that recently also to witness LG Display's leading over it with tandem OLED production. It will remain to be seen whether Samsung's acceleration will lead to problems in quality and reliability - which happened when it launched the world's first foldable phone back in 2019.

A few days ago Apple announced its 2024 iPhone 16 series, with all four models (iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro and 16 Pro max) based on OLED displays. According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo the first-week demand for Apple's new iPhones is lower than expected, with total demand of only 37 million units - lower by 13% compared to the demand for the iPhone 15 a year ago.

According to Ming-Chi Kuo, who's considered very reliable, the demand for the lower-end models is actually higher than last year - by 10% for the iPhone 16 and 48% for the 16 Plus. But this is not enough to offset the drop in demand for the higher-end modes: 27% less demand for the iPhone 16 Pro and 16% for the 16 Pro Max.

Yesterday Apple announced its 2024 iPhone 16 series, and its latest smartwatch devices - all based on OLED displays. We'll start with the the iPhone 16 that offers a 6.1" 2,000 nits (HBM) 1179x2556 Super Retina XDR LTPS AMOLED, while the iPhone 16 Plus offers a larger 6.7" 1290x2796 display. Both phones are based on Apple's latest 3nm A18 chipset offering improved performance and AI support.

The iPhone 16 Pro has a more advanced 6.3" 120Hz 2,000 nits (HBM) 1206x2622 LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED. The 16 Pro Max offers a larger 6.9" 1320x2868 AMOLED. These new phones are based on Apple's 3 nm A18 Pro chip, offer a "huge leap in battery life", support Apple Intelligence and feature new a main camera.

Huawei officially announces the world's first tri-folding OLED smartphone, the Mate XT. The phone and its specifications will be unveiled on September 10, and will ship on September 20.

Huawei allows people to reserve their Mate XT phone, and already over 1.25 million people reserved it. 

According to reports from Japan, Apple decided to adopt a 6.1" AMOLED display for its upcoming iPhone SE 4 smartphone, which will mean that all of the company's smartphone products will be based on OLED displays.

We actually reported this in March 2024, and back then it was suggested that Apple's target price was $25 for the OLED display - which was too low for Samsung Display that decided not to continue with its discussions with Apple. Back then it was estimate that BOE will supply the majority of the displays, and some orders will go to Tianma. According to the new report, the second supplier is actually LG Display.

Omdia says that Color-Filter on Encapsulation (COE) will grow to be the dominant technology in foldable OLED smartphone panels, and will replace the currently-used circular polarizers. COE adoption will grow at a 33% CAGR between 2024-2030, and by 2030 almost 90% of foldable smartphones will use COE technology, and almost 20% of all smartphone OLED panels.

The adoption of COE in OLEDs increases the panel effective brightness, which means that the display consumes less power compared to a polarizer OLED (same brightness) and also lasts longer. The color gamut is also improved. On the other hand, COE OLEDs suffer from higher reflectivity compared to polarizer OLEDs. 

China-based smartphone maker Tecno has unveiled a new concept device, called the Phantom Ultimate 2, that sports a tri-folding OLED display.

The device is actually a working prototype, that when fully opened has a 10-inch 1620x2880 LTPO AMOLED display. When fully closed, the display is 6.48" in size. The company says it has developed a unique hinge design that enables the whole phone to be only 11 mm thick when fully closed. Tecno tested the device and the hinge and it lasts for over 300,000 folding cycles.