USA Display Industry

Universal Display Corporation reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2026, with $152 million in revenues (down from $172 million in Q2 2025), and a net income of $49 million (down from $67 million in Q2 2025). At the end of the quarter, UDC had $855 million in cash and equivalents, after its quarterly dividend - and about $48 million in share repurchases during the quarter.

UDC expects full year revenues to be in the lower-end of its guidance ($630 to $670 million).

Something interesting is happening in Korea. Over the past few months, almost every significant move made by Samsung Display and LG Display has pointed in the same direction - upwards, towards the high end, and away from the volume tier of the OLED market. 

It is not clear yet, but this starts to look like a strategy: the two Korean OLED makers appear to be deliberately conceding the cheap high-volume OLED business to China, and betting both companies on the supply of premium panels higher-end applications such as monitors, laptops, tablets and automotive. 

This article looks into the latest signals from LG Display and Samsung Display, try to decipher their new OLED strategy, look at the potential and the risk - and also explores what it means for OLED supply chain companies, such as material makers, equipment makers, and more.

Component costs are rising - memory prices have been high for a while, and now other component vendors are also raising prices. One example is Qualcomm that announced yesterday that it is raising its chip prices by "double digits". This puts a strong pressure on device makers, including smartphone makers, to try and find ways to cut costs in other components.

According to industry reports, device makers, including Apple, are reaching out to OLED display makers, pressuring them to reduce costs. It is said that Apple has reached out to Samsung Display and LG Display (Apple's exclusive suppliers of its 2026 device OLED panels) and asks for a 20% price drop for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max AMOLED displays. 

Towards the end of 2025 BOE suffered from disruptions at its B11 AMOLED production line, which is where BOE produces smartphone AMOLED displays for Apple's iPhones. The company later resumed production, following what was one of several OLED quality issued the company was facing.

According to reports from Korea, Apple has decided that for all its new devices in 2026, it will rely on AMOLED displays produced in Korea by Samsung Display and LG Display, as it seems it is still not trusting BOE's production capabilities.

According to reports from Korea, Samsung Display has started to mass produce foldable OLED panels to Apple's first foldable iPhone. SDC is producing the foldable panels in its Asan, Korea hub, while the modules are produced in its Vietnam's module factory.

According to the reports, Apple's first order is for a total of 3 million displays that will ship in 2026. Samsung is the exclusive supplier of foldable panels to Apple, and Apple actually signed a 3-year exclusivity deal with SDC.

In 2024, US-based microdisplay developer Kopin Corporation spun-off its consumer OLED business unit to Lightning Silicon Technology, which also licensed Kopin's OLED technology. 

Kopin held a 20% stake at LST, and today the company announced that it has sold all of its shares back to LST, for only $2.

In November 2025, we reported that Samsung Display has finally started to produce OLED microdisplays, and Samsung Electronics will add SDC as its second microdisplay supplier for the Galaxy XR.

SDC's current OLED capacity is rather limited, and it produces WOLED-CF microdisplays. It is now reported that SDC is starting to look into direct-emission OLED microdisplay production, and has initiated talks with equipment suppliers. The displays will also support a multi-stack (tandem) architecture. Samsung is aiming to target the high-end market segment.

In March 2026, we reported that Japan Display (JDI) is considering constructing a display fab in the US, with support form the Japanese government - as part of a the 2025 US-Japan trade agreement. JDI later confirmed the report, and it is indeed looking into launching JDI display fabs in the US, but said nothing is final yet.

According to new reports, Japan Display's latest plan is to build an eLEAP AMOLED fab, in New York State, in collaboration with OLEDWorks. The total investment will reach $12.5 billion. JDI's new fab will mostly target high-end markets, such automotive displays and displays for the defense industry.

An interesting industry report suggests that Samsung is planning to ship 5-6 million foldable smartphones in 2026, from its new 8-Gen series (which will include the Galaxy Z Fold8, Z Flip8, and the new Galaxy Wide Fold). 

These numbers are slightly lower than what the company shipped in 2025, about 6 million units for their Galaxy Z7 series. It appears as if Samsung is anticipating a somewhat lower demand this year for foldable smartphones - a few months ago it believed it will ship 6.5 million units in 2026.

Last year we reported that Meta is said to be working on a new Quest VR headset, powered by OLED microdisplays, that will be supplied by both BOE and Seeya. It was believed that Meta aims to release the headset in 2026, and now we hear that Meta will likely delay the launch to 2027, and some more interesting specifications have surfaced.

The original Oculus Rift, and then the 2019 Oculus Quest both adopted OLEDs, but since then Meta opted for lower-cost high-performance LCDs. Now that competition is intensifying with Apple and Samsung aiming at the high-end part of the market, it makes sense for Meta to upgrade the performance of its VR headsets - and OLED microdisplay provide improved form factor, image quality, and power consumption. The rise of OLED microdisplay production in China also means that prices are getting lower.