Sharp to Invest $878 Million in OLED Production Expansion

Sharp is planning to invest $878 million to expand OLED production as Apple looks to use the display technology in all its iPhones by 2019.

Sharp and other manufacturers are trying to catch up with Samsung's lead in making the display panels, reports the WSJ.

Osaka-based Sharp, majority-owned by Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, hopes to make at least 30,000 display-panel sheets a month at its Japanese factories starting next year, said people briefed on the company’s plans. That will require about ¥100 billion in investment, they said, up 74% from a plan disclosed last September to spend ¥57.4 billion on small-scale OLED production lines by June 2018.


Despite the increased investment, Yoshio Tamura, co-founder of Display Supply Chain Consultants, says this would only result in a production capacity of 15 million smartphone panels a year. This is insignificant given the number of smartphones made annually is in the hundreds of millions. “Thirty thousand sheets a month is equal to doing nothing,” he said.

Apple is widely rumored to have a selected Samsung as the exclusive supplier of OLED panels for the 'iPhone 8'.

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