iPhone's LCD panel supplier JDI sees OLED screens sweeping market by 2021

While OLED panels are slimmer, more energy-efficient and offer higher contrast, JDI's liquid crystal displays will retain a price advantage that keeps them competitive in smartphones through 2021.

Business Standard : Japan Display Inc., the struggling supplier of mobile screens to Apple Inc., says it has about a year before it needs to decide on whether to take a plunge on next-generation organic light-emitting diode displays.

While OLED panels are slimmer, more energy-efficient and offer higher contrast, JDI’s liquid crystal displays will retain a price advantage that keeps them competitive in smartphones through 2021, the company’s new Chief Executive Officer Minoru Kikuoka said in an interview. He anticipates a more decisive shift to the new technology may occur in that time period, declining to elaborate on plans of specific customers.

When Apple launched its first OLED iPhone in 2017, it was seen as the beginning of the end for the LCD’s long reign. For Japan Display, which relies on Apple for a large portion of its revenue, that spelled trouble because the company was falling behind in the development of the new screens. But the iPhone X, which used an OLED display from Samsung Electronics Co., didn’t sell as well as anticipated, and Apple followed up a year later with an LCD-based addition to its lineup with the iPhone XR -- giving the Japanese company some breathing room.

With the smartphone market plateauing and fancier screens failing to ratchet up demand from users already content with their existing devices, value for money has once again risen in importance for people considering a new purchase, according to the CEO.

“We are seeing consumers put more emphasis on affordability when it comes to their smartphone preferences,” Kikuoka said. “The industry is now gaining a new appreciation for the kind of price competitiveness offered by the LCDs.”

Apple’s 2019 phone lineup includes one LCD model -- the iPhone 11, which Apple launched at a starting price $50 lower than its predecessor -- and the company plans to add a second one in the first half of next year to replace the aging iPhone 8. But the Cupertino, California-based company may still shift entirely to OLED for new phones as early as 2020. Though it will still sell a number of older LCD models, the time for Japan Display is running out.

After repeatedly pushing back mass production of its own OLED screens, JDI is finally close to having its first OLED product, Kikuoka said, declining to give further details other than to say that it won’t be a smartphone screen. A person familiar with the matter confirmed an earlier report that JDI’s first OLED will be used in the Apple Watch. Still, competing in the mobile phone arena would take billions of dollars in additional investment, money that Japan Display doesn’t have.