“News out of Apple’s supply chain today reports that Samsung Display is gearing up to operate seven of its next-generation OLED lines at full capacity in August, all of which are dedicated to Apple and the iPhone 8,” Mitchel Broussard reports for MacRumors.
“According to ETNews, the OLED ramp-up follows a series of inspections that Samsung made on each of the seven lines over the past few weeks in preparation for Apple’s much-anticipated OLED-only iPhone 8,” Broussard reports. “Samsung Display is the only supplier of OLED screens for the 2017 iPhone, and the manufacturer is said to see an increase from 15,000 panels per month to 105,000 panels per month following the full scale production increase.”
Broussard reports, “While Samsung Display will be the sole OLED supplier for the 2017 iPhone, numerous sources have said that a new supplier — LG Display — will enter Apple’s OLED supply chain in 2018. Apple is said to have invested $2.6 billion into LG Display to help the supplier get set up as a major OLED manufacturer for future iPhones, with Apple pressing LG to be ready as soon as next year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck making enough!
And, if you want a Day One OLED iPhone, good luck to you, too!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
105,000 Panels per month is at least 1 Zero short of what they need per week.
I don’t remember the exact number at the moment, but you get several (10? 12? 15? more?) iPhone size displays out of a full panel. The 105,000 panel rate will suffice Apple after the initial surge. That’s why they’re starting to ramp up over a month before sales of the phones start.
Even if they can only get 10 screens per panel (I think it is more TBH) that is just over 1,000,000 a month. I think this will be more than enough for the start of production especially if it goes on sale in late September, they could get a few million ready to sell on day one.
I searched for the number, Shadowself, but without success. But I have no doubt that you are correct. Apple will sell tens of millions of the iPhone 8 over the next year…something on the order of 5M per month or more, I have no doubt (if Foxconn can make that many). So each of those 105K panels had better yield at least 50 iPhone 8 displays or Apple is going to face the mother of all back order problems.
I’m hoping that’s per production line or 735,000.
Do you seriously imagine that Apple hasn’t carefully worked out how many panels and screens it believes it will need?