Samsung's OLED Monopoly Blamed for Higher iPhone 8 Price Tag

Samsung's current position as the only major OLED display panel supplier may explain why the iPhone 8 is rumored to cost around $1000, reports KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

The analyst says the new iPhone's display will include a flexible OLED panel, an OLED touch panel, a 3D Touch module, and an OLED panel module. Samsung is likely responsible for supplying each of the parts with the exception of the 3D Touch module.

Since there are no other suppliers Apple can turn to, Kuo believes Samsung will charge more than twice as much per unit as the LCD panels used in the iPhone 7 Plus. The OLED unit cost is estimated as $120-130 versus $45-55 for LCD panels.


Additionally, Apple's pressure sensitive 3D Touch technology may be why the company abandoned Touch ID on the OLED iPhone. Kuo believes that OLED creates unfavorable scan-through performance for the fingerprint sensor.

Apple has officially announced a September 12th iPhone event that will take place at the new Steve Jobs Theater. We're likely to see the launch of three new iPhones at the event - an iPhone 8, iPhone 7s, iPhone 7s Plus. The iPhone 8 would be Apple's tenth anniversary smartphone. It's believed to feature an edge-to-edge 5.8-inch OLED display with a notch in the bezel at the top for the earpiece and front facing camera. It will use a virtual Home button in place of the traditional physical Home button at the bottom of the device. The device will purportedly incorporate a revolutionary 3D sensor that is years ahead of the competition to enable facial recognition and augmented reality features. It's also said to feature a glass back to facilitate inductive wireless charging. The latest reports claim Apple was not successful in embedding Touch ID under the display and so the iPhone 8 will only feature Face ID (Pearl ID) for biometric security.

Apple is expected to offer the iPhone 8 in black, silver, and gold (copper?) colors and 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage capacities, all with 3G of RAM. In addition to the next iPhones, Apple is also expected to unveil a new Apple Watch with LTE support and a new Apple TV with support for 4K video.

It's suggested that Apple could release its new iPhones 10 days after the event on September 22nd.


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[via 9to5Mac]