Samsung slams breaks on Apple-exclusive OLED material sets
M10 likely to be applied
Samsung Display has decided against developing OLED material sets exclusively for Apple smartphones, meaning next year’s iPhones would likely use the M10 sets, according to industry sources on Sept. 10.
“The biggest reason for not developing exclusive sets anymore is due to the slow sales of the iPhones,” said one source close to the matter.
Display hadn’t developed an exclusive material set for this year’s OLED iPhones either. Instead, it supplied the M9 set that had been used in the Galaxy S10 series.
The M10, cited as the next generation material set, will be applied to the upcoming Galaxy S smartphones to be released next year.
For the iPhone X in 2017 and the iPhone XS series in 2018, the display maker had developed and supplied the California-based tech company with the OLED material set LT2.
Recently, Apple’s OLED iPhones haven’t exactly been flying off the shelves due to market saturation and intensifying competition.
In the first half of this year, Apple sold just 9.6 million of the iPhone Xs Max handsets fitted with Samsung’s flexible OLEDs to rank at 9th place globally, according to market research firm IHS Markit.
The iPhone XR, which was the most sold handset during the first six months of this year recording shipments of 26.9 million, was fitted with LCD panels.
Every month, Samsung Display churns out 105,000 of Gen-6 panels from its flexible OLED lines set aside exclusively for Apple products at its A3 plant. In full operation mode for half a year, the lines can push out enough panels for 120 million handsets.
For the M10 sets, South Korean supplier SFC will be manufacturing the blue dopant and host to replace Japan’s JNC. Another local supplier, DS Neolux, will be supplying the red and green prime to replace Merck. Samsung SDI will take the baton from Japan’s NSCM to supply the green host.
Meanwhile, in the second quarter of this year, Samsung Display received a cash payment of around $800million (952 billion won) as compensation. The amount of substantial, considering that Samsung Electronics’ aggregate operating profit from its display business in Q2 stood at 750 billion won.
The Elec is South Korea’s No.1 tech news platform.