Apple has long been rumoured to hanker after alternative sources for iPhone display panels to reduce its growing dependency on Samsung for the same.
At a time when LG Display has been speculated to be the ideal choice for Apple, a new report said that the Cupertino tech giant was indeed looking at the South Korean LCD panel maker to help it diversify its OLED panel supplies for the next iPhones.
An OLED panel supply deal between Apple and LG Display is currently at its final stage, with the latter expected to start shipping the component for the next iPhone in the second half of this year if an agreement is made, The Investor reported, citing industry sources.
The report, however, said that the first batch of shipments will include only about 15 to 16 million screen for 2018, much less than over 10 million screens per month produced by Samsung, which is the sole OLED supplier for the existing iPhone X.
When it comes to LG Display, the company will produce larger 6.5-inch screens for the upcoming iPhones while Samsung Display will primarily produce smaller 5.8- or 6-inch screens.
The report, therefore, suggests that there could be two iPhone 9 variants this year, including one with a smaller screen size and a Plus model with a much bigger display.
However, the speculation about two 2018 iPhones contradicts a recent forecast by KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said that Apple would launch three iPhones in 2018, including 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch models with OLED displays and a 6.1-inch model with an LCD display.
Kuo also said that all three 2018 iPhone models will come with iPhone X-like features, including a full-screen notched design and the revolutionary TrueDepth camera system.
In addition, the iPhone X successor with the 5.8-inch display was rumoured to feature 458 pixels per inch (PPI), suggesting a resolution of 1,125 × 2,436 pixels. The bigger 6.5-inch model was expected to come with about 480 to 500 PPI while the 6.1-inch model was predicted to have a pixel density of roughly 320 to 330 PPI.
