iPhone 8's OLED panels rumored to come from rival flagship phone
Supply shortage for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) could be on the way with iPhone 8 considered as one of the largest potential contributing factors.
Apple has been rumored to shift from LCD to the new OLED display technology.
Early this year, Apple was reported to be requiring around 14 percent of Samsung's production to fulfill the demand for its upcoming iPhone 8. The tenth-anniversary iPhone is expected to feature a new design that improves the screen-to-body ratio, a virtual on-screen home button, and a glass back that enables wireless charging.
Aside from the new design and OLED display of iPhone 8, the latest from Apple is expected to boast new augmented reality capabilities and other camera features. Moreover, the smartphone could feature a 3D face scanning using a front-facing camera setup according to BGR.
Apple's competitor, Samsung, is expected to be the sole display manufacturer of iPhone 8. The South Korean company is the largest small form factor of OLED panel producer.
It is also estimated that Samsung uses up about 56 percent of the market's OLED panels for its Galaxy smartphones, including the Galaxy 5 flagships and A series mid-range phones. Considering the demand from Apple, and other partners of Samsung like Oppo and Vivo, the shortage supply of OLED is most likely to happen according to Android Authority.
Samsung is estimated to have only 50 million AMOLED panels for other manufacturers in the next years after counting the demand of its own and that of Apple for its iPhone 8. Recently, Google was reported to have invested $800 million for LG to build a new production line solely for mobile panels. The company has already two flexible OLED plants.
Other factors seen in the shortage of OLED supply is the falling production costs and yields. Huawei and HTC are two manufacturers interested to pick up the new technology.
