Apple Is Interested in Japan Display's LCDs for Some iPhones Next Year
2017年9月28日 - 2:11PM
Dow Jones News
By Takashi Mochizuki and Yoko Kubota
Apple Inc. has expressed interest in buying advanced
liquid-crystal displays from Japan Display Inc. for some iPhones
next year, people knowledgeable about the matter said, a sign the
technology has life despite competition from a newer type of
display.
Japan Display said last month that the advanced displays, which
it calls Full Active, would account for more than 70% of its
business in panels for smartphones and other smart devices in the
year ending March 2019. Japan Display has said in a regulatory
filing that Apple accounted for about 54% of its revenue in the
year ended March 2017.
Asked at a Tuesday news conference about customers for the Full
Active displays, Kazutaka Nagaoka, chief of Japan Display's mobile
unit, said clients so far were mostly Chinese handset makers
including Xiaomi Inc., which he said used the panel for its Mi Mix
2 phone. He declined to discuss potential clients from other
regions.
People at companies that work with Japan Display said interest
about Full Active LCDs has also come from Apple. That is why the
display maker is predicting rapid uptake for Full Active, they
said. Apple declined to comment.
It is still too early to say what kind of iPhones Apple might
unveil next year and what displays they would use. The company
typically plans years in advance for future iPhone models, but
doesn't commit to designs until around March the year a new phone
launches, according to people familiar with the development
process. Components and features can continue to change as the
manufacturing process ramps up.
Analysts expect Apple and other smartphone makers to shift
gradually to newer organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, screens,
in part because it is easier to make curved or angled screens using
OLED and because the newer technology may offer displays with more
contrast.
However, cost and supply issues are likely to slow down any
transition, analysts say.
Japan Display argues that its improved LCD screens can match or
exceed some of OLED's advantages at lower cost. In Full Active, the
bezel or border space around each edge of the screen has been
trimmed to 0.5 millimeters, the company says, compared with as much
as several millimeters on older LCDs. Minatake Kashio, director of
Tokyo-based consultancy Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, said current
OLED smartphone panels have a bezel of about one millimeter.
Japan Display is working on a version of Full Active that it
says would match the OLED technology in enabling phone makers to
offer curved screens.
Apple's iPhone 8 series, introduced this month, uses
liquid-crystal displays, while its new iPhone X uses an OLED
screen. Some technology reviewers and buyers have criticized iPhone
8 as too similar to older models.
The iPhone X's OLED display is made by a division of Samsung
Electronics Co.-- an uneasy situation for Apple because Samsung is
also a rival in the consumer market. Mr. Kashio of Fomalhaut Techno
Solutions said components of the iPhone X's OLED display cost about
$110 a unit, about twice the price for a liquid-crystal
display.
Japan Display says it plans to start mass-producing OLED screens
in the year beginning April 2019. Meanwhile, it is counting on
Apple and other smartphone makers to buy its liquid-crystal
displays.
Japan Display's reliance on Apple puts it in a precarious
position that has proved problematic for other suppliers. Apple can
be a boon for suppliers because it makes more than 200 million
iPhones a year, but when it changes components, it can send shares
of its suppliers tumbling.
Imagination Technologies Group PLC supplied Apple with
technology to process graphics in iPhones, but shares of the
British chip designer fell more than 70% in intraday trading in
April when it said Apple would stop using Imagination within 15
months to two years. Imagination agreed last week to be bought by a
China-backed investment firm.
Tripp Mickle contributed to this article.
Write to Takashi Mochizuki at takashi.mochizuki@wsj.com and Yoko
Kubota at yoko.kubota@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 28, 2017 00:56 ET (04:56 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.