LG Display did not supply OLED panels for the iPhone X, the company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday. That’s hardly a surprise for anyone following iPhone X news. Samsung is the big winner this year when it comes to the iPhone X, other than Apple, of course. And Samsung will supposedly supply as many as 200 million OLED panels to Apple next year.
LG, meanwhile, has not decided whether it wants Apple’s iPhone X business.
The news comes from the same filing, Reuters says in what’s probably one of the shortest reports the news organization has ever written during the holidays.
LG Display is of course just one of the other OLED display makers out there vying for Apple’s business. And Apple is in need of a second display supplier for the iPhone X so it doesn’t have to rely solely on Samsung.
Samsung’s OLED screens are the best in the smartphone industry, which is why Apple is using them. As for LG not having decided on whether it’ll supply OLED screens to Apple, that’s not necessarily a decision for LG Display to make. Sure, LG could refuse Apple, but who does that? Samsung would have to sell more than 20 million Galaxy Note 8 units next year to make as much money as selling OLED displays for the iPhone. That’s how massive Apple’s OLED business is already.
It’s more likely that Apple has not decided whether to use LG’s screens. The two companies, however, are reportedly working on a secret iPhone project for the future, likely a foldable phone that Apple wants to keep hidden from Samsung.
LG does make OLED screens for the Pixel 2 XL, which is a phone built by LG. But the Pixel 2 XL came under fire for various display issues in the days after its launch. The Pixel 2, packing a Samsung-made OLED screen, did not exhibit the same issues.
LG told Korean reporters earlier this month that it has not decided anything about the iPhone X. “Regarding the OLED supply deal for Apple’s iPhone X, nothing has been set in detail. When anything is confirmed in detail, we will announce it, or (otherwise an announcement will be made) in a month,” LG Display said in a filing at the time.
