USA TODAY International Edition
You have to wait for new iPhone X
OLED screens cannot be built fast enough
SAN FRANCISCO Apple’s iPhone X boasts a cutting-edge screen bursting with crisp, bright imused ages, the sort of eye-popping technology that gets consumers to line up to spend $1,000 or more on the device.
But that line will be long and slow: Apple won’t start shipping the redesigned phone until Nov. 3, more than seven weeks after it was unfurled Tuesday.
The reason is as crystal clear as iPhone X’s new OLED screen. OLED manufacturers can’t build the screens fast enough as they increasingly pop up on smartphones, high-definition TVs, watches and virtual-reality headsets. It’s an issue that not only is dogging Apple, costing it billions of dollars in short-term sales, but has tripped up Samsung, HTC and Google, too.
“It’s an industry issue,” says Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight, a research firm headquartered in London. “There is a lack of manufacturing capacity for OLED and a lower yield of screens that meet (quality) standards.”
Apple declined to comment on OLED delays.
As smartphones have become better video devices, OLED (organic light-emitting diode) represents the natural evolution of display technology because it delivers a wider and richer color palette, as well as improved contrast than LCD displays.
An OLED crunch has already muddied the releases of other consumer tech products in the last year. Google’s Pixel phone, out last year, faced supply constrictions around OLED, as did HTC’s Vive VR goggles and the latest big-screen OLED TVs.
Parts makers can’t build the screens as fast as device manufacturers want. OLED displays have been highly-valued in portable devices such as smartphones and wearables such as smart watches, including each series of the Apple Watch, because of their superthinness and more efficient power usage. OLED displays are also in virtual-reality goggles because they have faster refresh rates to prevent blurred imagery.
The quandary comes down to profitability, says Tim Bajarin, principal analyst from Creative Strategies in San Jose. Most OLEDs displays are going into large-screen TVs that are more profitable for OLED vendors to produce. While OLED makers also make money making smaller screens for iPhone X, those margins are smaller, Bajarin says.