Rumor: Samsung will supply OLED screens for iPhones from 2017

Samsung and Apple have signed a deal to supply OLED screens for smartphones, according to a South Korean newspaper. Samsung would supply 100 million 5.5-inch displays to the iPhone maker every year from next year.

The deal is currently worth about 2.5 billion euros on an annual basis, the Korea Herald estimates based on analysts. Given the number of panels and the diagonal of 5.5 “Apple seems to be aiming to equip only its large smartphones with OLED screens with screens from Samsung. The current iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus have a screen diagonal of 5.5”.

Samsung has OLED panels with a diagonal of 5.5 “and a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. Such panels, which can also be equipped with the technology that Apple uses for 3D Touch, are already in the Huawei Mate S and P9 Plus.

It is unknown whether Apple also wants to make smaller models with OLED screens. The current iPhone 6 and 6s have 4.7″ screens. It is not inconceivable that Apple will make a deal with another screen supplier. LG has been making OLED screens for some time and Japan Display would also like to do that.

There have long been rumors that Apple wants to equip its smartphones with OLED screens. At the end of last year, a deal with LG would have been almost completed. The American electronics maker has been using OLED screens in its Apple Watch since last year. It is the first Apple product with such a screen.

LG and especially Samsung have been using OLED screens for years. Because the pixels of OLED screens go out when displaying black, the contrast is much higher than that of LCDs. As a result, it gives the impression that the images are splashing off the screen more than LCDs.