BOE nearly dropped from iPhone OLED panels supply chain due to design changes

BOE is one of the manufacturers responsible for supplying OLED panels for the 6. 1-inch model of the iPhone 13. But ever since February, the company hasn’t made iPhone OLED panels for Apple. Here’s why.

According to a report by The Elec, there are two reasons. The first one was the shortage of display drive ICs. Sources familiar with the situation say that LX Semicon is providing supplies to BOE. However, it’s supplying more LG Display.

In April, 9to5Mac already pointed out this issue. Apple had hoped that Chinese display manufacturer BOE would be able to make as many as 40M iPhone displays in 2022, but a shortage of display driver chips saw the goal reduced to 30M.

In addition, the most likely reason why BOE hasn’t made any other OLED panels for the 6. 1-inch iPhone 13 is that “the panel maker likely changed the design of the OLED panels, such as expanding the circuit width of the thin-film transistor, and this was discovered by Apple, the sources added.”

Although the iPhone OLED manufacturer had to stop production, it is unlikely that Apple will remove BOE from its supply chain.

It’s more profitable for Apple to continue BOE as a supplier and to press Samsung Display, LG Display, to lower their OLED panel units prices.

Despite the dip in production volume, the sources said BOE’s B11 factory, which manufactures OLED panels for iPhones, at Sichuan was still operating.

It’s also unclear how this issue caused by BOE will impact its goal to produce the iPhone 15 Pro OLED panels, as Samsung is said to be the only supplier for the iPhone 14 Pro panels. It’s important to note that BOE supplied 15 million to 16 million units of OLED panels for iPhones in 2021, while it was planning to supply up to 60 million units this year – which is not going to happen.

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