It was reported a few months ago that Samsung Electronics is looking at alternative OLED screen suppliers for its next-generation Galaxy S smartphones. The company had initial talks with BOE, which sent in samples to the South Korean firm for testing. However, the attempt failed as the quality was not up to Samsung's standards, but BOE will reportedly continue to make efforts in the future.
According to a new report from ETNews, BOE will continue to make its attempts to bag OLED screen orders from Samsung in the future. BOE is the world's biggest LCD panel maker and is looking at OLED as its next growth engine. The Chinese firm is heavily investing in OLED technology and trying to get orders from smartphone industry giants Apple and Samsung. Multiple sources revealed that BOE has been eliminated from Project U (internal codename for Galaxy S21 series).
It has been reported that BOE had put in significant efforts to supply flexible OLED screens for the Galaxy S21 series. As the Galaxy S series is Samsung's top-tier smartphone lineup, it uses the best components each year, and getting an entry into Samsung's supply chain would signify the emergence of BOE in the mobile OLED industry and offer them a chance to be recognized globally. This is the reason why BOE will continue to invest and try to get orders from the South Korean firm.
While the exact reason for BOE's elimination from Galaxy S21's components supplier list is unknown, it could be quality and unit cost. Apparently, Samsung Display, which supplies OLED screens for Samsung's flagship smartphones, took steps to prevent BOE from supplying OLED screens for the Galaxy S21. Samsung's display manufacturing arm has over 90% market share in the mobile OLED industry and supplies panels to Apple, Huawei, OnePlus, OPPO, and Xiaomi.
