Some of the technical advantages of LED versus LCD technology are clear enough to see why LED display technology is the way of the future, at least for now. It is also why it wouldn’t be surprising to see Apple start to incorporate more OLED displays into its other products as well, going beyond iPhones.What this means is that Apple will need a lot of components, and this is something that both Sharp and LG are looking to take advantage of. In a report from DigiTimes (via 9to5Mac), it seems that both Sharp and LG are competing with each for Apple’s OLED orders, which if the rumors are true could be used in more than one iPhone this year.
At the moment Samsung is pretty much enjoying being Apple’s sole OLED supplier, but this year LG is expected to be the second supplier, and now Sharp wants in on the action as well. “Sharp, now a Foxconn Electronics company, is likely to come ahead of fellow company Japan Display (JDI) to crank out OLED screens as early as in the second quarter of 2018, said the sources, citing Japan-based media reports.”
At the moment Apple’s uses OLEDs in the Apple Watch and the iPhone, and like we said, we wouldn’t be surprised if that use extended to the iPad or even the MacBooks in the future. In fact recent reports have suggested that due to Apple’s “hogging” of the OLED display components, Chinese OEMs have had to turn to mini LEDs instead.