iPhone X Production to Be Cut in Half; Samsung Now Looking for OLED Buyers, Source Says
The iPhone X, notch and all, is currently not as hot a commodity as Apple would like it to be. The company is reportedly cutting down production of their $1,000 flagship phone in half due to weak demand, prompting its OLED screen supplier Samsung to find ways to sell their excess components.
Samsung has been a top choice for Apple when it comes to OLED displays, with the Korean company looking to continue supplying the components for new iPhones this year as well. Business is good if Apple's expensive flagship phones are flying off the shelves, but with the iPhone X not looking like it would sell as much as the company would expect, an issue has come up on the supply side of things as well.
"Samsung is increasingly selling OLED panels to outside clients," an official at an electronics trading company in Tokyo said to Nikkei. The company has ramped up their OLED screen production capacity to meet what was the projected demand for the iPhone X back then, and now with Apple looking to drastically cut back on production output, Samsung is now left with a glut of OLED panel production capacity.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
The contentious issue of the distinctive notch aside, one of the main reasons that the latest iPhone is not selling too well is the price. At $999 or more, the iPhone X is simply out of reach for most of the mobile market, and one of the reasons for that is the OLED touchscreen panels that cost almost twice the equivalent LCD screen.
Even Samsung is having difficulties growing its segment of OLED-equipped smartphones, according to IHS Markit, a British research firm. "Using OLED panels makes it difficult to compete with rivals on price," Hiroshi Hayase, senior director at IHS Markit, noted about Samsung's OLED situation.
