iPhone 8, is expected next year to be the first Apple smartphone with OLED-display. According to some estimates, Apple could take up to 70 million cuved OLED-panels for premium models of the new iPhone. The order for their production supposedly got the South Korean company Samsung. According to PhoneArena, Samsung Display has signed a contract with Apple to supply up to 100 million OLED-displays.
Now Samsung is the main supplier of OLED-panels in the world. The company uses OLED-displays, not only in their mobile devices, and delivers them on request to other manufacturers. This is why the three leading Chinese manufacturer of smartphones, which occupy most of the market in China, united in a consortium to invest in OLED production.
According to the publication, Oppo, Vivo and Huawei, which in the past quarter have put a total of more than 70 million smartphones, invest in Royole, the little-known manufacturer of AMOLED-panel. Thanks to the investments of Chinese companies Royole should ramp up production OLED-displays in 2017 or 2018. Also Oppo, Vivo and Huawei are considering other options to reduce dependence on Samsung Display, in particular, they are willing to place orders for OLED-displays for their devices at production facilities of Sharp or JDI.
BBK is also a Chinese corporation, which owns Vivo and Oppo brands, has created an independent subsidiary, which will be engaged in the production of AMOLED-panel. According to DigiTimes, in the period from 2017 to 2019, it will produce at least 60 thousand monthly AMOLED-display.