It is known that apple House will switch to using organic diode displays (OLED) in all iPhone models from 2025 onwards, including low-cost iPhone SE models. This leads to two companies specializing in Japanese background suppliers, Japan Display (JDI) and Sharp, being "difficult" to Apple.
JDI and Sharp accounted for 70% of the iPhone screen market share about a decade ago, but recently the two companies have only provided LCD screens for the iPhone SE. Currently, Chinese and Korean suppliers are the key OLED screening suppliers for Apple.
According to many sources, Apple has started ordering OLED screens for the upcoming iPhone SE from BOE Technology Group (China) and LG Display (Korea). This change marks the end of the LCD display on the iPhone, with the SE model expected to launch next year also having a OLED screen, along with standard iPhone models and high-end Pro models.
Accordingly, Samsung Electronics of Korea also holds about half of the OLED screen market for iPhones, while LG Display accounts for about 30% and BOE accounts for about 20%.
With the increasing demand for movies, sports and gaming on smartphones, Samsung has sold OLED screens instead of LCD since 2009. Because OLED screen technology does not require backlights, it brings more vivid color and sharp contrast compared to LCD.
In 2017, "Bad Hag Party" used OLED panel on the iPhone X for the first time. Since then, the company has switched from LCD to OLED for high-end models. In around 2015, JDI and Sharp supplied nearly 200 million LCD screens per year to the iPhone, but that number dropped to around 20 million in 2023.
According to Omdia - a market research company, OLED screens will surpass LCD in the number of wallpaper shipped for smartphones for the first time this year.
On the other hand, Apple plans to continue cutting down on LCD purchases as iPads and other products start using advanced OLED screens.
Until recently, Japanese manufacturers have continued to consider Apple their main customer and expand production to meet iPhone sales.
However, the transition to OLED has caused them to fall into a situation of excess capacity. Although JDI also develops energy-saving OLEDs, the company now only provides small OLED displays for devices like the Apple Watch, while LCD has switched to car apps.
As for Sharp, the company is also narrowing the scale of LCD business activities. In August 2024, the company stopped operations at the Sakai factory in Osaka, which produces large LCD screens for TVs, and reduced capacity at the Kameyama factory in Mie Prefecture.
