OLED Smartphones - introduction and industry news - Page 2

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.

UBI Research says that shipments of foldable OLED smartphone panels more than doubled in Q2 2024 (compared to the first quarter), reaching 9.94 million units. Foldable OLED smartphone panels accounted for 5.2% of the total OLED smartphone display market.

UBI expects foldable OLED panel shipments to continue growing in the second half of 2024, and sees total 2024 shipments exceeding 40 million. By 2028, the company expects foldable OLED panels to reach an almost 10% out of the entire OLED smartphone market.

According to DSCC, OLED panel shipments increased 50% in the second quarter of 2024, compared to the second quarter of 2023. Compared to the previous quarter, shipments increased 13%. 

DSCC says that OLED tablet shipments increased 356% in the quarter compared to last year (led by Apple's adoption of AMOLEDs in its iPad Pro devices). OLED smartphone spanel shipments also 49%, while OLED TV panel shipments increased 30% from 2023.

DSCC says that shipments of foldable OLED panels reached a record high in the second quarter of 2024 at 9.8 million units - 126% higher than Q2 2023 (and 151% higher than the previous quarter). DSCC believes this will be the peak quarter in 2024, as the demand was fueled by the launch of Samsung's latest foldables, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6.

Samsung holds an almost 50% market share in foldable smartphone panels orders, followed by Huawei at 29%. Timing is relevant, as high demand follows new model shipping dates. DSCC estimates that clamshell devices have a 63% market share out of the total foldable smartphone market, with the rest taken up by in-folding devices.