Apple throwing 2.67 billion Dollars at LG to make more OLED panels

Samsung is the current leader in both semiconductor and OLED production on a global scale. Unsurprisingly, the South Korean conglomerate is very often sourced as a major component provider for companies like Apple for everything from SoCs to LCDs. In an attempt to diversify the list of potential suppliers, Apple will purportedly be funding one of Samsung's biggest competitors to hasten its OLED manufacturing efforts.

As reported by The Investor, Apple will be investing 3 trillion KRW (or about 2.67 billion USD) on new LG OLED factories. While this sounds promising for the OLED market as a whole, the fine print is that these new facilities will be dedicated to producing 30,000 OLED panels per month only for Apple products. Thus, other smartphone and tablet manufacturers would not directly benefit from the Apple-LG deal at least for the time being. Future iPhone smartphones beyond the upcoming iPhone 8 will very likely be equipped with OLED displays from both Samsung and LG if these new revelations are of any indication. In contrast, the OLED panels for the iPhone 8 are being provided almost exclusively by Samsung.

The news comes just three months after it was revealed that Google would also be investing nearly $1 billion USD into LG OLED production. There's hope yet that the explosive interest in OLED smartphones will lead to more OLED notebooks outside of the very expensive ThinkPad X1 Yoga and Alienware 13.

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