BOE to Supply OLED Panels to Apple
Chinese companies are in hot pursuit of Korean companies in the OLED panel market.
BOE, China's largest display company, is expected to supply nine million OLED panels to Apple in 2021. Although this figure is only 5.3 percent of Apple’s total OLED panel demand of 169 million units, Korean OLED makers take the fact seriously. This is because not a long time has passed since BOE began to develop next-generation display technologies.
BOE started operating a 6th-generation flexible OLED panel plant for the first time in May 2017. In just three years, the company received an order from Apple to supply OLED panels for refurbished iPhones. Industry analysts believe that BOE is highly likely to supply additional panels for the iPhone 12 series to be produced in the second half of 2021. They forecast that BOE's smartphone OLED market share would jump from 0.1 percent in 2017 and 8.8 percent in 2020 to 13 percent next year.
Samsung Electronics will also use BOE panels. According to Omdia, Samsung Electronics purchased OLED panels only for Galaxy models from Samsung Display in 2020. It said BOE will be one of the suppliers of OLED panels for the Galaxy M series in 2021. BOE once supplied LCDs to Samsung Electronics, but this will mark BOE’s first supply of OLED panels to Samsung Electronics.
Other Chinese companies are also making a stride. CSOT, Tiama and EDO are also rapidly ramping up their investments. More than 20 OLED production lines are currently being expanded or planned by them. CSOT and Tianma are expected to take up 6 percent and 4 percent of the market for smartphone OLED panels, respectively.
China's entry into the OLED panel market reminds display market experts of the collapse of the oligopoly of Samsung Display, LG Display, and AUO in the LCD market three years ago. At the time, Chinese companies such as BOE and CSOT sold LCD panels mass-produced through 10.5th-generation factories 20 to 30 percent cheaper than others. OLED panels are a new market that Korean companies pioneered after retreating from the LCD market.
Although Korean companies outweigh Chinese companies in terms of technological power in the small and medium-sized OLED markets, prices of Chinese panels are about 70 percent of Korean products.