Apple's complete shift to OLED displays tasked to LG and the iPhone 12 Max
By now, there is little doubt that 2020 will be the first year when Apple will release an iPhone 12 quartet where all handsets will be using OLED display technology. It took the company 9 years to switch to OLED after the first Galaxy S was introduced by Samsung with a unique and yet-unproven 480×800 Super AMOLED screen, but it is getting there now that the technology is cheaper and ubiquitous.
The potential iPhone 12 Max bestseller may be released with an LG display
The fact that Apple is trusting LG with its 6.1″ OLED panel demonstrates a level of preparedness that LG probably didn’t have last year, and explains the heavy investments and prioritization of its small and medium size OLED panel production lines.
The other three new iPhones – the 5.4″ iPhone 12, the 6.1″ iPhone 12 Pro, and the 6.1″ iPhone 12 Pro Max – are said to have displays supplied by Samsung, to the tune of 55 million orders in total. Those figures show that Apple expects at least 75 million iPhones to be sold in the first quarter after the iPhone 12 release in the fall, and the largest share of those to be with LG-made displays.
So far, Apple has only rarely tested the waters with LG OLED displays, as small and medium sized ones are not the company’s strong suit, unlike big TV panels. It has relegated LG to secondary display supply functions for iPhone screen replacements or wearables like the Apple Watch, so it seems logical that the 6.1-incher could be the affordable model with lower screen resolution.
Another fact in indirect support of this theory is that the up-and-coming Chinese OLED makers from BOE have also been in the running for the 6.1″ iPhone 12 Max’s OLED display, but have so far demonstrated poor yields with sufficient quality, tip insiders, so Apple may only be left with the Samsung and LG sources.
LG, however, had a breakthrough recently, managing to raise quality yields enough to ship some 6.7″ OLED screens for the iPhone 11 Pro Max. Those still won’t be enough for the tens of millions of units that an eventual 6.1″ iPhone 12 Pro and 6.7″ Pro Max will likely ship in, so we’d still bet that LG will be supplying screens for the cheapest fall 2020 model only indeed, just as Korean media reports.