Over the years, demand for smartphones with curved displays has been significantly increasing and it seems like LG Display has taken note of this. The South Korean company plans to invest 1.99 trillion won ($1.75 billion) to produce curved OLED displays, in a sign that more major smartphone manufacturers may adopt curved displays in their future devices.
LG Display plans to open a new production line called E6 which is slated to begin mass manufacturing in late 2018. It will be producing 15,000 input sheets per month which will be enough for 3 million handsets with a 5.7 inch curved OLED display. Before this, LG Display had been focusing more on larger OLED displays which were mainly used for television sets while its small-sized screens were mainly made of LCDs. The company is a major supplier in the display industry, including Apple, which has been using the firms LCD displays in its iPhones. LG Electronics, which is an affiliate of LG Display, also sources LCD displays from LG Display for its devices, including its latest flagship, the LG G5 which makes use of an IPS LCD display. LG Display also happens to be the largest manufacturer of LCD displays for the time being.
OLED curved displays have an advantage over the typical LCD display as OLED technology will show more saturated colors, such as a darker black. The OLED screen also has more flexibility as it can be folded and bended hence enabling smartphone manufacturers to bend it into a curved screen for their devices. OLED displays also tend to drain less battery and heat problems are less common. With its latest investment, LG seems to be trying to catch up with its main rival, Samsung Display which currently dominates the small-sized OLED screen market and shows no sign of slowing down. Samsung has been using its OLED displays in many of its devices over the years, from its flagship Galaxy smartphone series to its mid-range J series. Most recently, Samsung has been using OLED curved displays in its Galaxy Edge series, with the latest being the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Seeing how far ahead Samsung is in the OLED display business, LG has a long way to go to match Samsung.