Bigger yields could let Samsung churn out 180-200M iPhone OLED panels in 2018
Samsung Display has allegedly improved the yield rates for the OLED panels used in the iPhone X, and could manufacture as many as 180 to 200 million OLED panels for Apple next year.
While rates were as low as 60 percent earlier in 2017, those have increased to nearly 90 percent, according to Korea Herald sources. The difficulty of manufacturing the iPhone X's edge-to-edge display was reportedly an assembly bottleneck, though the larger problem may have been the device's 3D-sensing TrueDepth camera.
To date Samsung is said to have supplied about 50 million iPhone X panels.
Launch-day stocks of the phone were extremely low, with shipping delays quickly stretching out into weeks. In the past month, however, those delays have shrunk dramatically, to the point that the phone is available for next-day delivery or same-day pickup in many cases.
Apple is thought to be preparing two OLED iPhones for late 2018. One should measure 5.8 inches, like the X, but the other may reach a colossal 6.5 inches, dwarfing even Samsung's 6.3-inch Galaxy Note 8. People wanting size at a lower cost may be able to get a 6.1-inch LCD iPhone.
While rates were as low as 60 percent earlier in 2017, those have increased to nearly 90 percent, according to Korea Herald sources. The difficulty of manufacturing the iPhone X's edge-to-edge display was reportedly an assembly bottleneck, though the larger problem may have been the device's 3D-sensing TrueDepth camera.
To date Samsung is said to have supplied about 50 million iPhone X panels.
Launch-day stocks of the phone were extremely low, with shipping delays quickly stretching out into weeks. In the past month, however, those delays have shrunk dramatically, to the point that the phone is available for next-day delivery or same-day pickup in many cases.
Apple is thought to be preparing two OLED iPhones for late 2018. One should measure 5.8 inches, like the X, but the other may reach a colossal 6.5 inches, dwarfing even Samsung's 6.3-inch Galaxy Note 8. People wanting size at a lower cost may be able to get a 6.1-inch LCD iPhone.
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And you'd think the 10.5 iPad Pro will likely want an OLED refresh too. (and yield on that geometry will take a while to build up).
Samsung Mobile and Apple will have priority access for those displays. Google can continue to use the low quality LG panels in the Pixel line of phones.
The smart device market is rapidly consolidating into two major players. Samsung and Apple. Google has to be worrying about the possibility of losing control to Samsung. It’s why they are dedicated to the Pixel. It doesn’t matter.
Samsung is going to control the non iOS portion of the mobile market. Google is in the process of watching Samsung take control of the second major mobile platform and powerless to stop the inevitable. Samsung’s engineering prowess is unparalleled and Google is incompetent with respect to hardware and components.
1. With respect to LG, the idea that a company has to sell products in the numbers that Apple does iPhones in order to be profitable or relevant never has been true or never will be true. Example: Nintendo's stock is through the roof because they are going to sell 12 million Switches this year instead of 10 million. LG Display's biggest customer is LG Mobile, and LG Mobile sells 55-65 million smartphones a year. Before you roll eyes at that, please remember that Apple sold 18 million Macs in 2016 - or slightly more phones than LG sells in a single quarter - and they sell even fewer Apple Watches, and no more than a million Apple TVs a year. So the Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV are "toast" too?
2. How can the mobile device market's major players be Apple and Samsung when Huawei sells more smartphones than Apple does some quarters? Huawei is going to start selling flagships through U.S. carriers in 2018 where before you could only buy a flagship Huawei on Amazon which meant paying the entire $600 upfront instead of carrier monthly payment plans - and that is going to mean still more growth for that company. Also, Xiaomi will sell a record number of phones thanks largely to growth in India, Oppo and BBK are doing the same as always, and Nokia has sold at least 10 million smartphones as well. Apple fans have been claiming that the Android smartphone market is going to consolidate since 2012. Instead, there are more companies making and selling Android phones than ever, with only HTC among the major Android OEMs to fail and fold. You even have Microsoft being an unofficial Android partner now, selling Microsoft Editions of Android phones in their Windows Stores and a whole bunch apps and services targeting enterprise users: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/10/15/microsoft-android-launcher-edge-browser-new-app/#cadc6826e33f. And yes they are making money. Remember back in 2012/2013 when all the crowing was over Apple making 105% of all profits in mobile, and everyone took that as evidence that Android was finished, that no one was making money, and the manufacturers were all going to exit the business? Well in 2016 that was down to less than 80%. It was spun various ways - an Apple Insider article crowed that Samsung was "only" making 25% of the profits that Apple was making in mobile - but realize that making only 0.5% of the profits of the largest and most profitable company in the world by far is more than enough for most of everyone else i.e. 0.5% of $100 billion is half a billion dollars. That is why Nokia (or HMD Global) can call selling 10 million smartphones a year a success just as Nintendo can call selling 10 million Switches a year a success.
3. Why should Google be any more concerned about losing control to Samsung than Microsoft was about losing control to IBM, Dell, HP, Lenovo etc.? Microsoft wasn't. What Microsoft feared and used anti-competitive practices to stop was to prevent IBM, Intel and Sun from creating a competing operating system. So long as there was no third competing operating system - they were fine with the existence of Apple - Microsoft didn't care which hardware companies made Windows PCs because they made the same amount of money regardless. Google feels the same way. Google doesn't even mind Samsung having their own competing app store, and doesn't block others like Amazon and Microsoft from installing their app stores on Google devices either. Things between Google and Samsung got tense nearly 10 years ago back when Samsung tried to remove "Android powered by Google" and other Google-related branding, trying to fool their customers into thinking that their phones were Samsung-only products in order to keep them from buying Android devices from other manufacturers. The result of that standoff was Samsung buying what became Tizen and using it for their "other than smartphones and tablets" smart device business - which kept Android TV, Android Wear and their IoT efforts from succeeding - but other than that things between Google and Samsung are fine. Google and Samsung actually worked to put most of TouchWiz into stock Android in order to allow Samsung devices to run smoother and faster, and they cooperate heavily on things like research for graphics chips and software APIs. Samsung's smart speaker next year - an Alexa and Google Home type device - will have BOTH Bixby and Google Assistant on it. Another thing: Samsung's market share is actually falling. Their profits are rising because they are selling fewer low-margin devices while keeping their sales of high margin devices constant (and charging more for them). As far as why they are dedicated to the Pixel, Google has stated that it is because it gives the Android platform better hardware and software than the OEMs and components manufacturers were capable of managing on their own, even with Google attempting - and entirely failing - to use the Nexus program to influence the direction of Android. Google only makes about 5 million Pixel phones a year, and they share their hardware and software innovations with Samsung and everyone else after an exclusivity window of about 6 months. Again, where Samsung and everyone else generally ignored what Google introduced with Nexus devices - in fairness because they were often ideas that made no difference commercially or were simply flat out bad - Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung and the rest quickly copied the better Pixel ideas.
So basically everything that you wrote was untrue. Every. Single. Thing. You know, buying an Android device would help. Seriously. Go buy one of those Android devices from China that you can get from Amazon. Note: they will not have Google Play apps and services on them. (They will have the Chinese equivalent on them instead, but they will be totally worthless to you since this isn't China.) You will quickly see how totally useless an Android device is without Google's apps and services. So Samsung's engineering prowess and whatever are only useful in conjunction with the Play Store, Chrome and everything else. Without them you would actually be better with a Windows Phone (assuming such an animal still existed). Google needs Samsung's hardware and components. Samsung needs Google's apps and services. It has been that way in the Android arena for 10 years just like it has been for Wintel for going on 40.