LG may be supplying Apple with 6.5-inch OLED panels for H2 2018
LG Display is apparently almost ready to close out a deal with Apple to manufacture 15 to 16 million OLED panels by the end of 2018 according to sources close to The Korea Herald. The news echos the announcement made last year where Apple promised to invest $2.67 billion USD into LG Display for the research and production of OLED technology. If the sources are correct, then Apple may be reaping the benefits a lot sooner than anticipated.
Worldwide iPhone sales, however, are over an order of magnitude greater than the 16 million OLED panels LG will be producing. Samsung will supposedly be making up the deficit by contributing 160 to 200 million panels during the same 2018 time frame. It is a possibility that Apple will want to create a better balance between its two panel suppliers by 2019 and onward in order to reduce its dependency on Samsung.
Perhaps what's more interesting is that these panels from LG and Samsung will be of different sizes according to the same source. Samsung is to provide the smaller 5.8-inch and/or 6-inch panel while LG will be delivering a 6.5-inch OLED panel to allude to multiple iPhone sizes yet again for 2018. The larger 6.5-inch iPhone model would therefore be of limited quantity and of the same flagship status as the current iPhone X.
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