OLED is an emerging display technology that is fast becoming the mainstream display technology in many markets, as OLED enables display panels that offer the best image quality and free design as they can be made flexible and transparent. The Samsung OLED displays are considered to be the best in the industry and the Korean company is the clear lead in AMOLED production for mobile devices.
Over the pay years Samsung invested billions of dollars in OLED research and production facilities as the company sees OLEDs fast replacing LCD displays in all mobile applications.
Samsung is currently producing over 300 million AMOLED displays in a year, used mostly in smartphones - such as Samsung's own Galaxy S7 (and S7 edge ) - but also in smartphones from Gionee, Meizu, Acer, HP, Vivo, Microsoft, Lenovo, ZTE, Hisense, Konka and others. Samsung also produces large mobile OLEDs for tablets, laptops and monitors.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge
In August 2013 Samsung launched the company's first OLED TV, the KN55S9C, which used a curved 55" OLED panel. The TV was priced at around $8999 in the US and Korea, but is no longer in production, and was never in real mass production. Samsung has yet to return to OLED TV production.
Following its initial flexible OLED production launch in 2013, and the huge success of its edge-type phones, Samsung is currently producing around 9 million flexible OLEDs each month to satisfy demand for the Galaxy S7 edge and its other flexible OLED products. Samsung has reportedly been chosen to supply 100 million flexible OLED panels to Apple's future iPhones.
Samsung is developing several next generation display technologies based on OLEDs. Samsung has been developing a foldable OLED device for a long time - which may dramatically change the mobile device market as it could enable smartphone to turn into tablets or phones that can be folded into smaller devices.
Samsung is also developing transparent OLEDs (see the company's 55" FHD transparent and mirror-type OLEDs here) for retail application, and also readies next generation displays for the automotive industry.
Several years ago Samsung released the following video, showing a concept transparent flexible AMOLED tablet device. It will be years before Samsung can commercialize such a display, but it's nice to see what the future holds:
Latest Samsung OLED news
Samsung started shipping its flagship tablet the device, the Galaxy Tab S5e - Samsung's thinnest tablet yet at 5.5 mm. The S5e features a 10.5" WQXGA (2560x1600) Super AMOLED display with a 81.8% screen-to-body ratio.
Samsung's Tab S5e offers mid-range performance with a snapdragon 670 octa-core chipset, 4/6 GB of RA and 64/128 GB of storage (with a microSD slot). The 7,040 mAh battery provides up to 14.5 hours. The Galaxy Tab S5e is now shipping starting at $399.
Following the reports from early reviewers that the foldable screen in their Galaxy Fold devices broke down after a day or so, Samsung has decided to delay the release of its foldable smartphone.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung wants to "fully evaluate the feedback and run further internal tests". Samsung will announce a new release date int he coming weeks. Samsung did not fully disclose its initial findings and does not give a full explanation to what went wrong with these review units. Samsung did, however, state that "Initial findings from the inspection of reported issues on the display showed that they could be associated with impact on the top and bottom exposed areas of the hinge. There was also an instance where substances found inside the device affected the display performance."
Last month Huawei launched its P30 and P30 Pro smartphones (with a 6.1" 1080x2340 AMOLED on the P30 and a 6.47" 1080x2340 AMOLED on the P30 Pro). Reports from China suggested that Huawei adopted SDC AMOLED for the P30 and BOE-made panels on the P30 Pro.
According to Anandtech, who posted an extensive review of the P30 and P30, the supplier for the smaller 6.1" AMOLED on the P30 is indeed Samsung Display, but Huawei uses both LG Display and BOE as suppliesr for the large 6.47" AMOLED on the P30 Pro.
Only yesterday we reported that early reviews of the Galaxy Fold are very positive and that Samsung says there's overwhelming demand for the new foldable device - and today we have much less positive news.
At least 4 early Galaxy Fold reviewers report that only after one day of use, the screens on their devices broke. The Verge's Dieter Bohn says that a bump appeared on the crease of the phone, which quickly broke the screen - even though he did not perform any stress tests or anything - just normal phone use.
Samsung Display started to accept pre-orders for the Galaxy Fold a few days ago (April 14th) - and the company says it is already sold out due to "overwhelming demand" and it is no longer taking pre-orders
This is great news, especially as many questioned whether customers will be willing to pay $2,000 for a foldable smartphone. Of course Samsung's foldable OLED production capacity is limited so this demand may not be actually very high.
Samsung Display announced today that it has started to mass produce foldable OLED displays, shipping the first such displays to Samsung Electronics.
SDC's first foldable OLEDs are the inside-folding 7.3" 1536x2152 Infinity Flex AMOLED displays that will be used in the Samsung Galaxy Fold - which will start shipping later this month (for $2,000) in Korea and Europe.
In February 2019 Samsung Display started to mass produce its new 15.6" 3840x2160 OLED display panels, and finally we have the first laptop to ship with such a panel - Dell is now offering its 2019 Alienware m15 laptop. The 15.6" OLED display is a $350 extra compared to the regular 15.6" FHD LCD (according to Digitimes, the price gap between these two displays should have been closer to $60).
SDC is targeting premium laptops, as these ultra high resolution panels are optimized for gaming, graphic design and video streaming. At CES we saw three companies that announced 15" OLED laptops - HP with its Spectre x360, Lenovo with the Yoga C730 and Dell with the XPS 15, Dell G7 15 and the Alienware m15 which is indeed now shipping.
Samsung Galaxy Fold, with its inside-folding 7.3" 1536x2152 foldable Infinity Flex AMOLED display, will start shipping in April 2019, for $2,000.
Consumers will undoubtedly be worried about the durability foldable devices. Samsung released the video above that shows how the Galaxy Fold hinge system withstands multiple folding cycles.
DSCC says that OLED market revenues will grow from $26.5 billion in 2018 to $28.7 billion in 2019 and over $52 billion by 2023. The largest application will remain smartphone displays, but several other applications will generate over $1 billion in 2023 - TVs, tablets, notebooks and monitors. By area of production, TV displays will surpass smartphone displays in 2021.
Samsung is still (and will remain so) the dominant AMOLED display producer, even though its market share will drop from 97% in Q1 2018 to 81% in Q4 2019. In Q1 2019 Visionox surpassed LGD to become the 2nd largest AMOLED producer (but most of Visionox's panels are low-end 5.5-inch panels). DSCC expects LGD to regain its number 2 position in the second half of 2019. BOE is the third player and will remain so following its supply agreement with Huawei.
HP introduced its 2019 Spectre x360 15 high-end laptop in CES 2019 - including a top-of-the-line variant that sports a 15.6" 4K AMOLED display. HP originally aimed to start shipping it in March 2019, but this did not happen and according to Anandtech, the company says it now hopes to start shipping it on April 19.
Interestingly Anandtech also says that HP will release an updated HP Envy laptop which will also sport the same AMOLED display. We do not have more details on the new Envy laptop yet.
