Samsung intends to build the world's largest plant for the production of OLED-displays, reports The Investor with reference to informed sources. This goes well with the fact that the new iPhone 8 is expected to use screens on organic light-emitting diodes.
The factory called A5 will include two main buildings located in the South Korean cities of Cheonan and Asan (Chungcheong-Namdo province). The company plans to produce 180,000 to 270,000 OLED panels a month, which is almost 30% more than the production volume at Samsung's largest factory - A3.
The volume of investments will make about $ 20 billion. If the process starts this year, the plant can earn full capacity in 2019.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Apple ran the risk of encountering a deficit in the iPhone 8 at the start due to problems with the production of OLED displays. Before the official announcement of the smartphone, scheduled for September, Samsung Display will be able to deliver only 3-4 million OLED-panels. In this regard, there are fears that Apple will not be able to sell 50-60 million iPhone 8 before the end of the year, as predicted earlier.
As expected, the new flagship will be equipped with 5.8-inch OLED-display, wireless charging and will receive a body of glass and metal. It will be released in September along with the iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus, which will be content with LCD screens.
At the moment Samsung Display continues to dominate the market of OLED displays. Analysts estimate the company's share in the display segment for smartphones and tablets in 2016 in 96.7%.
LG Display intends to press Samsung in the global market of OLED-displays for smartphones and is already taking concrete steps in this direction. The company agreed on the supply of displays of Chinese Xiaomi and is negotiating on the same occasion with other vendors from China.
LG Display expects to reach the monthly output of about 120 thousand OLED-panels, which roughly corresponds to half of today's shipments of such screens by Samsung Display.
Samsung representatives declined to comment on this information.