Last year’s iPhone 12 saw a delay in production and release mainly due to the COVID-19 issue but Apple is on-track with this year’s release. The iPhone 13, as expected to be called, is expected to launch in September 2021 and hence, production of components have begun already. Two key suppliers, namely Samsung and LG, have started manufacturing the OLED displays that the entire iPhone 13 series will use this year.
Both Samsung Display and LG Display have started manufacturing the OLED panels for the iPhone 13 series already. Samsung will supply the LTPO OLED display for the iPhone 13 Pro models whereas LG and BOE will supply displays for the regular iPhone 13 series. The production is said to start earlier this year upon Apple’s request, as the latter seems to push the iPhone 13 production early this year, says the report from TheElec.
iPhone 13 displays already in production
The iPhone 13 series is expected to be more of a version update than an all-around upgrade. However, Apple is introducing meaningful changes to the lineup. The iPhone 13 Pro models are expected to finally follow the industry trend of offering high refresh rate OLED display and hence, are using the Samsung-made OLED panel. LTPO panels are power efficient and help with the variable refresh rates.
Representative Image: iPhone 12
The vanilla iPhone 13 models, aka, iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini, are expected to retain the 60Hz OLED displays. However, unlike Samsung supplied OLED panels last year, these will be using OLED displays manufactured by LG and BOE. In fact, LG will manufacture 30 million units of OLED displays. BOE is expected to make 9 million units of OLED displays for the iPhone, in general, this year.
Samsung, meanwhile, has the largest contract for display, manufacturing 80 million units of its LTPO OLED panel for the iPhone 13 series. The numbers can go up to 130 million when one considers the supply of OLED displays for the iPhone 12 models and other legacy iPhone models on sale.
This year’s iPhone 13 is expected to make a lot of changes to the display since 2017’s iPhone X. Rumours have suggested that the display notch is shrinking this year as Apple figures out a way to rearrange the earpiece grille. On the other hand, Android-based rivals have long ditched the notch and opted for smaller hole cutouts.
