Despite being rivals, Samsung and Apple do a lot of business together. Last year, Apple placed an order with Samsung for 100 million OLED panels for its upcoming iPhone 8. But it appears that wasn’t enough. Apple sells a lot of smartphones per year and has, therefore, decided to place another huge order. According to a report from The Investor, Apple ordered an additional 60 million OLED panels from Samsung. The total value of the new deal is estimated to be around $4.3 billion.
Samsung is the biggest manufacturer of OLED panels in the world, which are found on around 70 percent of the company’s smartphones. With the tech giant hoping to increase sales of its upcoming Galaxy S8 series compared to its predecessor and committing to ship a total of 160 million OLED displays to Apple, we might see a supply shortage of OLED panels in the market this year.
The demand for OLED screens is rising and companies are now more than ever willing to use them on their smartphones. This is because their price has decreased over the last few year and are now cheaper to produce than LCD panels. In order to avoid a supply shortage, production will have to be increased.
Samsung obviously isn’t the only OLED producer in the world. LG is also manufacturing OLED panels and is reportedly already ramping up production because of the increased demand. In addition, smaller companies in China and Japan have invested in developing in their own OLED manufacturing lines.
