Several rumors in recent months have indicated that Apple is planning to give its flagship phone an AMOLED display sometime within the next couple of years. Although rival manufacturers such as Samsung have used AMOLED displays in their flagship devices for years, Apple has stuck with LCD for the iPhone. AMOLED displays deliver brighter colors, sharper images and better power efficiency compared to LCD, but they’re almost more expensive to mass produce.
That said, it looks like Apple is now running out of reasons to not adopt AMOLED displays for its iPhones because they’re now cheaper to produce than LCD displays.
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Android Authority points us to some new data from IHS Technology that shows a 5-inch AMOLED panel now costs $14.30 per unit while a 5-inch LCD panel costs $14.60 per unit. As recently as late 2015, the average 5-inch AMOLED panel cost $17.10 per unit, so this is a big drop in production costs in a pretty short amount of time.
What this all means is that it’s the perfect time for Apple to make a big investment in AMOLED displays since they’ll no longer hurt its precious iPhone margins. In fact, producing an iPhone with an AMOLED display at this point would be cheaper than producing one with an LCD display.
