BOE currently relies on its B7 and B11 factories to produce OLEDs for Apple, both of which are located in China's Sichuan province.
Chinese display maker BOE is in the process of increasing production to meet Apple's demand for flexible OLED panels for smartphones. This will be done by converting three existing factories namely B7, B11, and B12 into OLED suppliers for Apple.
Thus, BOE is likely to overtake LG's screens in 2023 to bag the second position in the list of companies supplying OLED for iPhones. BOE's flexible OLED panel production capacity will reach 144,000 substrates per month in the fourth quarter of next year, up from its current capacity of 96,000. This equates to Samsung Display's current capacity of 140,000 substrates per month.
As for LG Display, its capacity reaches 30,000 substrates per month but the company plans to expand it to 45,000 substrates per month for flexible OLED panels and 15,000 for rigid OLED panels.
Reporting from Gizmochina (22/11), BOE is also converting the B7, B11, and B12 from its current low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPO) thin-film-transistor (TFT) arrangement to its current low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) TFT.
BOE currently relies on its B7 and B11 factories to produce OLEDs for Apple, both of which are located in China's Sichuan province. B7 handles front-end processes while B11 is back-end for iPhone 12. And for iPhone 13, B11 handles front-end and back-end processes.
The display manufacturer will be able to supply 15 million units of OLED panels to Apple for the iPhone 12 and 3 million units for the iPhone 13 this year. Overall, that will account for 10% of the total OLED panels used by Apple in this year's iPhones.
For 2022, Apple is expected to ship 240 million iPhones. Samsung will target 150 million units, LG Display 70 million units, and BOE 50 million units. Thus, BOE will only be able to overtake LG in 2023.