Apple Pulls Orders From China's BOE For iPhone 15 Line After It Faces 'Light Leakage' Issues With Panels

Apple has pulled orders from Chinese display-making giant Beijing Oriental Electronics or BOE after the company could not fix the issues it was facing in making the iPhone 15 display.

Samsung Display will start manufacturing OLED panels for the iPhone 15 Series in May, a month earlier than initially planned.

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Apple has pulled orders from Chinese display-making giant Beijing Oriental Electronics or BOE after the company could not fix the issues it was facing in making the iPhone 15 display, the media has reported. Displays made by China's BOE have not met the quality requirements due to which Apple's plan to reduce dependency on Samsung will not work for now, says a report by 9to5Mac that cited Korean publication The Elec.  

BOE's OLED panel production has inconsistent yields and there's a prominent light leakage around the cutout for the Dynamic Island that will be present in iPhone 15. As part of its plan to reduce its dependency on Samsung, Cupertino, California-based Apple has been looking to diversify its OLED supply chain by taking the Chinese OLED maker BOE into the mix which was earlier dominated by Samsung and LG only, with the former taking the bulk of orders.

Apple has various suppliers that manufacture its iPhones, iPads and other Apple devices. The higher-end displays that require more advanced technology, are being produced by Samsung.

Samsung Display will start manufacturing OLED panels for the iPhone 15 Series in May, a month earlier than initially planned, The Elec report added.

Earlier in January, China's BOE secured the initial order for the upcoming iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus and the Apple display supplier may potentially overtake Samsung as the iPhone's largest display provider by 2024, famed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had predicted.

BOE may also become the largest supplier of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus displays this year, according to Kuo, who also added that China's BOE outpaced Samsung and secured most 2H23 new iPhone 15 and 15 Plus display orders earlier this year. If development and production proceed smoothly over the next few months, BOE will become the largest display supplier for the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, with a market share of around 70 per cent whereas Samsung has a share of 30 per cent.

China's BOE’s key growth drivers for profits from new applications over the next 2–3 years include medium to large OLED displays for Apple, medium to large mini-LED displays for Apple, and more affordable foldable displays for Android phones.

Meanwhile, Samsung became the top OLED display provider for last year's iPhone 14 lineup, a report by Korean tech publication The Elec said in November.

Samsung Display is supplying more than 70 per cent of the OLED panels that Apple uses for its iPhone 14 series, which is due to the company’s dominant position helped by setbacks of rivals LG Display and BOE, The Elec report added, citing sources.

Apple iPhone 15 Plus is likely to launch later this year and the iPhone 15 line may comprise four models, similar to what we saw in 2022. The vanilla iPhone 15 may be unveiled alongside the iPhone 15 Plus, the iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

The iPhone 15 series is likely to sport the same display size as the iPhone 14 series. However, the iPhone 15 Pro Max model may bear the 'Ultra' moniker; Samsung also uses the Ultra moniker for its super-premium flagship Galaxy S models, a leak suggested last month.