Ming-Chi Kuo's iPhone 8's OLED screen analysis + High demand and low supply of screens for new iPhone models

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and other analysts have shared their predictions about the future of OLED screen on all Apple iPhone models. Some analysts said that Samsung Display may not provide enough supply of OLED screen for the iPhones that will be launched in the fall of 2017. Kuo also fearlessly predicted the new features of the new iPhone model including the improvement of the screen display.

Kuo has an unparalleled track record attaining Apple's future plans. Most of the predictions he made for iPhone 6S, iPhone SE and iPhone 7 were accurate.

Samsung Display's OLED screen supply for iPhone in 2017

"Apple has already figured in there will be high demand for the OLED model and they’ve also figured out there will be constraints to these panels," Dan Panzica, a supply chain analyst at IHS Markit, told Bloomberg.

Reports claimed that Apple initially ordered 100 million units from Samsung. However, due to the increasing demand of iPhone and low production of the OLED screens, Samsung may only deliver a portion of the number of units for the 2017 holiday period.

LG Display Co., Sharp Corp., and Japan Display Inc. are the other three major suppliers of OLED screens, but Samsung was the sole supplier for Apple, reports claim.

Ming-Chi Kuo's predictions on iPhone OLED screen and models

"Display technology is still a pretty key driver of the purchasing experience," Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, told Bloomberg.

Apple took advantage of display features as its selling points. In the previous models, the company used Retina Display in iPhone 4 and increased the size of the screens to 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch in iPhone 6.

The current predictions of Kuo claimed that there will be an improvement in the size and type of screen for the upcoming iPhone model.

"We predict OLED iPhone will be 5.1-5.2", despite various market speculation. In terms of the display size of the OLED iPhone, current information from the upstream points to 5.8,” while that from the downstream points to 5”, which does not conflict, in our view. We predict OLED iPhone will adopt a 5.7-5.8” flexible OLED panel (with Samsung (KR) as the exclusive supplier). Nonetheless, for ‘specific design purposes’, the actual active area may be around 5.1-5.2". Other than the OLED model, we expect Apple to launch new 4.7” and 5.5” TFT-LCD iPhone models," according to the research note of Kuo released by MacRumors.