Company wants to boost production of OLED panels

Jul 23, 2019 09:03 GMT  ·  By

LG Display has recently confirmed it would invest some 3 trillion won, which is approximately $2.6 billion, in its OLED production facility in South Korea, all with the final purpose of expanding capacity.

In other words, the company wants to build more such OLED screens, at the same time trying to step away from LCD as much as possible.

LG already has some serious competition in the LCD manufacturing market, mostly from Chinese producers typically going for lower prices, so by moving to OLED, the company hopes it can deal with the dropping demand in the smartphone market.

LG Display is one of the top Apple suppliers, and its decision to invest heavily in OLED panels comes at a time when the iPhone maker is also getting ready to fully embrace this display technology too.

Full iPhone switch to OLED next year

Apple currently sells two iPhones with OLED panels (iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max) and one with an LCD screen (iPhone XR). The same lineup will be used for the 2019 generation projected to launch in the fall.

Next year, however, Apple is expected to make the full transition to OLED, so all iPhone models seeing daylight in 2020 will use this display tech. In other words, 2019 could be the last year witnessing the debut of an LCD iPhone, according to analysts.

With investments in its OLED manufacturing power, LG Display can also prepare for Apple’s prepared transition from LCD. Apple already uses OLED panels from Samsung for the iPhone XS, but the company typically wants to have as many suppliers as possible in order to avoid any inventory struggles that could hit one particular partner.

Just as expected, Apple has remained to completely tight-lipped on these investments prepared by its display manufacturing partner.