Samsung, LG ditch BOE in likely Apple deal for iPad Pro OLED panels

Samsung Display Co. and LG Display Co. will likely win orders from Apple Inc. to build organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays for the US tech giant’s next-generation iPad Pro tablets to be released next year.

Apple has asked the two South Korean companies to develop two types of panels sized 10.9 inches and 12.9 inches for its first iPad Pro equipped with OLED displays, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Order volumes have not been fixed but will likely be evenly divided between the two companies, sources said. For the deal, Samsung and LG beat China’s BOE Technology, which was also striving to win the order, they said.

Industry officials expect Apple to introduce iPad Pro models equipped with OLED screens – the first of its kind for Apple – in 2024.

Apple iPads are the company’s staple products selling more than 70 million units annually. In the November-January quarter, the company posted $9.4 billion in sales revenue from tablet products.

Apple is also said to be introducing in 2026 new MacBook laptop computers with OLED panels sized 14 inches and 16 inches. The company’s MacBook sales reached $7.3 billion in the three months to January.

Currently, all Apple iPads and MacBooks are equipped with backlit LCDs, although the Apple Watch and most iPhone models have OLED panels.

OLED is highlighted by self-illuminating pixels that do not require backlighting, allowing the production of lightweight, thin and flexible display products, appealing to high-end consumers.

TO MOVE TO EIGHTH-GEN LINE FOR MASS PRODUCTION

Sources said Samsung and LG plan to manufacture OLED panels for the Apple iPad Pro models in large quantities at their sixth-generation lines using 1,500 mm x 1,850 mm glass substrates.

In 2021, LG Display spent 3.3 trillion won ($2.5 billion) to expand its OLED panel production capacity. The company aims to double its monthly panel substrate production to 60,000 units by the first quarter of 2024 from the current level.

If the two Korean display makers also won OLED panel orders for the new MacBook series, they would likely move to the eighth-generation lines using larger 2,200 mm x 2,500 mm sheets for the mass production of such screens, sources said.

Samsung Display Chief Executive Choi Joo-sun said last year the company will actively invest in eighth-generation lines for smaller-sized panels for tablets and laptops.

For mass production of OLED panels, display makers are racing to secure display manufacturing equipment.

Canon Tokki Corp., a Japanese OLED panel manufacturing equipment maker, recently raised prices of its eighth-generation glass substrate filming machines to over 500 billion won a unit, compared with prices of between 150 billion won and 200 billion won per sixth-generation machine, industry officials said.

Write to Jeong-Soo Hwang and Ji-Eun Jeong at hjs@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.