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Apple may use OLED screens in its future iPads and MacBooks after reportedly failing to buy enough OLED displays from Samsung owing to poor iPhone sales. Samsung has asked Apple to pay a penalty for not buying the minimum order of OLED screens, as reported by ETnews.
Samsung is currently the world’s largest manufacturer of OLED displays and produces about 40% of OLED screens in the world. However, the South Korean giant has been unhappy with Apple because the Cupertino giant failed to order the minimum requirement of OLED screens. Despite iPhone X’s overwhelming success Samsung Display noted that Apple did not reach the minimum threshold of orders as agreed earlier.
According to ETnews (Korean media outlet), Samsung’s display earnings have seen a sharp decline from $4.9 billion in 2017 to $2.3 billion in 2018. A big reason for that plummet in sales is Apple buying less screen from Samsung than agreed upon. To compensate this Samsung is now seeking a penalty for the unfulfilled contract which has been the main reason for the 50% decline in revenue in Samsung’s display business.
Legally, Apple will have to pay a fee if they violate their contract with Samsung which at the moment seems to be the case. In a bid to avoid such fee and any unneeded contractual complexities, Apple is planning to use those extra Oled screens in their iPads and MacBooks. This is quite clever from Apple, as this will not only save them from violating their contract, it will also add extra value and quality to their already successful products and will subsequently allow them to raise the prices.
With Apple recently announcing the arrival of dark mode on iOS, iPad OS and MacOS (one year ago), the new OLED screens can prove to be quiet useful as they will help in minimizing battery consumption thanks to the OLED technology which completely turns off the dark pixels on the screen. This move may also very well increase the sales of iPads and MacBooks as it will offer something new to the Apple fans and will improve the already top of the line Retina display.
It’s not clear when will these OLED displays feature in iPads and MacBooks but Ming-Chi Kuo (industry’s most reputable Apple news-leaker) suggests that the 2021 MacBook Pro will feature an OLED screen.
