Apple is reportedly planning on switching to OLED panels on all variants of the iPhone by 2019. The company was keen on using OLED panels on all variants of the iPhone this year itself as per an early report, but supply issues have forced the company to use the panel only on the new 5.8-inch premium model that it will be debuting this year.
In addition, the report claims that Apple will be sourcing Flexible PCBs from Samsung and Interflex for the iPhone 8. While Samsung has been supplying Apple with PCBs for quite some time, Interflex is a new vendor in Apple’s supply-chain. The company is also setting up a $866 million production facility to handle the additional demand from Apple.
As of now, Samsung Display dominates the OLED market. The company supplies OLED panels to majority of Android OEMs out there, but reserves the very best panel technology for its flagship devices. The Korean company has already secured an order to supply 60 million OLED panels to Apple this year that was reportedly worth $4.3 billion. Apple does not like to rely on one company for sourcing its components, so it has asked its other vendors to set up OLED factories for it.
The premium iPhone 8 model is expected to come with a 5.8-inch OLED panel with a bezel-less design. The handset will also feature wireless charging, fast charging, and a revolutionary front camera with facial or iris recognition