BOE facing troubling in iPhone OLED production from chip shortage

Chinese display giant BOE is facing production problems in OLED panels for iPhones due to the ongoing global chip shortage, TheElec has learned.

The shortage will affect production this month and next month, sources said.

BOE procures display driver ICs for the panels from South Korean chip firm LX Semicon.

But LX Semicon’s production volume is falling short of the planned amount, sources said.

The South Korean firm, due to the lack of production capacity from foundries, is supplying its display driver ICs first to LG Display, its other customer besides BOE, they said.

The Chinese display giant is expected to lower the OLED panel unit production volume up to next month by around 2 million units ts to 3 million units from the issue.

Apple is expected to have ordered up to 10 million units of OLED panels for iPhones to BOE for the first half of 2022.

The Chinese display giant internally had aimed to ship over 40 million units of OLED panels for iPhones this year, another group of people familiar with the matter said.

It is unlikely that they will meet this target now and its ultimate shipment numbers will more close to 30 million units by the end of the year.

Still, BOE is expected to widen its share in Apple’s OLED panel supply chain as it will be supplying 6.06-inch low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) thin-film transistor (TFT) OLED panels for the upcoming iPhone 14 series.

Samsung Display is the dominant player in the supply chain, supplying over 60% of the OLED panels used by Cupertino for its smartphones. LG Display is the second-largest supplier.