“Apple is not yet fully switching to OLED screens due to high price”
Apple will reportedly continue to develop iPhones with LCDs for the time being instead of completely switching to OLED screens to continue to offer consumers a cheaper option. This is because the iPhone X, the first Apple phone with OLED, would sell less than predicted.
The news comes from The Wall Street Journal, which bases its reporting on insiders at the tech giant’s supply chain. They state that they expect Apple to switch to a line-up with only OLED screens only in 2020, because iPhones with LCDs still sell more than the iPhone X in total, which would mainly be due to the price tag of 1160 euros.
So Apple would certainly introduce two more iPhone generations, most likely in September of 2018 and 2019, smartphones with the cheaper LCD. Just like last year, this year’s iPhone offer would consist of two phones with LCD and one with an OLED screen.
According to estimates from the sources of The WSJ, an OLED screen costs about 100 dollars and an LCD about 40 dollars. The reason for the price difference between LCD and OLED is the production process, which has not yet been streamlined and scaled up to produce as much as LCDs. The effort to produce enough OLED screens is something that both Samsung Display Co, Apple’s supplier, and LG Display Co. struggle with. According to The WSJ, there is a good chance that LG Display Co. also becomes a supplier for Apple.
Apple iPhone X