“Apple Inc has decided to use OLED screens in all three new iPhone models planned for next year, according to South Korea’s Electronic Times – a report that sent shares in Japan Display tumbling 10 percent,” Makiko Yamazaki and Ju-min Park report for Reuters.
“Japan Display, one of the main suppliers of iPhone liquid crystal display (LCD) screens, has lagged its South Korean rivals in OLED production. By contrast, shares in LG Display Co Ltd surged,” Yamazaki and Park report. “Apple recently started planning new iPhone models and decided all three models would have organic light-emitting diode panels, the report said on Monday, citing multiple unnamed industry sources.”
“The stock was down 10 percent at the end of Tuesday’s morning session, giving it a market value of about 105 billion yen ($965 million). At one stage it fell as much as 21 percent,” Yamazaki and Park report. “‘The Japanese government will continue to provide a lifeline to Japan Display, but the company has been just so slow in catching up with South Korean rivals in OLED,’ said Masayuki Otani, chief market analyst at Securities Japan. It was formed in 2012 by combining the display businesses of Hitachi Ltd, Toshiba Corp and Sony Corp in a deal brokered by the state-backed Innovation Network Corp of Japan (INCJ).”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Get a move on, Japan Display!
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Apple might equip all of next year’s iPhone models with OLED displays – May 29, 2018
I wish Japan display would challenge Samsung and Koreans in general when it comes to high tech OLED supplies to Apple. instead they are surrendering too much and missing out.
Any excuse to get rid of nasty SamSplode as a supplier is a good one.
I seem to recall that Apple had pumped some money into Japan Display several years ago to develop manufacturing facilities. How has that paid off?
South Korean news sources have quite a track record for breaking stories about future deals and plans which subsequently turn out to be untrue or misleading. Those stories always benefit South Korean businesses and disadvantage their rivals.
Personally I would take any such report with a huge pinch of salt until such time as it is confirmed by a reliable source.
I would also point out that the story only states that Apple will be using OLED displays. It doesn’t say where those displays will come from, although the implication is that they will come from Korea and the suggestion is that Japan Display will not be able to deliver what Apple wants. The reality could be quite different, things do sometimes suddenly change.