Samsung gets a lot of business from Apple by supplying OLED displays and memory chips for many of its products. That includes OLED panels for Apple Watch as well. However, according to a new report, Apple is planning to equip the next-generation Watch Ultra with a Micro LED display, which means that the iPhone maker will not require as many OLED panels from Samsung as it does now. In other words, Samsung could lose a lot of business from Apple as it won’t be supplying the company with display panels for the next generation of the Apple Watch Ultra.
The latest information comes from Jeff Pu, a market analyst who has a mixed record of revealing information about upcoming Apple products. According to him, Apple will launch the successor to the Apple Watch Ultra in 2024, and this smartwatch will use a Micro LED display. That means Apple will not use Samsung’s OLED panel for the upcoming watch as it does with the current model. Can’t Samsung supply Micro LED to Apple? Well, Samsung doesn’t manufacture Micro LED displays for small devices at the moment. It does only for large screen devices like TVs.
If Apple is planning to launch the next-gen Apple Watch Ultra in 2024, it could currently be in the development stage, and the company could already be placing orders for the Micro LED display. Considering that Samsung doesn’t manufacture small Micro LED displays, the order for the upcoming Watch Ultra’s display will most likely go to some other brand. Currently, there’s no information about who this manufacturer could be, but considering that BOE supplies the majority of OLED displays to iPhones, it could be one of the contenders for the order.
Samsung is already suffering from low revenue and operating profit due to decreasing consumer demand, and the latest news about the upcoming Watch Ultra is another major blow to the company. Samsung is very concerned about the ongoing crisis, and reportedly, the Executive Chairman of the company, Lee Jae-Yong, had a meeting with the heads of all the departments of the firm on the first business day of the new year and asked them to immediately come up an emergency plan to cope with the decreasing consumer demand and thus, low revenues.
