Korean media: Samsung Display is Apple’s sole panel supplier for foldable screens

Recently, with the news of Apple’s folding screen iPhone trial production, mobile phone screen suppliers have also been continuously exposed.

According to Korean media reports, Samsung Display has signed a three-year exclusive supply contract with Apple, becoming Apple’s sole supplier of folding screen panels. It is reported that the exclusive agreement was first proposed by Samsung Display, and Apple accepted this arrangement in the absence of other mature alternatives.

In terms of production capacity arrangements, Samsung Display plans to begin mass production of folding OLED panels for Apple in the second quarter of this year. However, out of a cautious assessment of the market response, the first batch of supply in 2026 is expected to be set at around 3 million pieces, which is lower than the tens of millions previously predicted by the industry.

In terms of technical specifications, Apple has put forward extremely high requirements for its first folding screen product. The panels supplied to Apple will use advanced CoE technology, which forms color filters directly on the packaging layer, thus eliminating the need for polarizers.

This design can effectively avoid cracks that may occur in folding screens during frequent operations. At the same time, in order to achieve a balance between cost and performance stability, the product will continue to use the M14 material system, which has been verified on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Although there are still different opinions about the specific release time of the whole machine, "in the second half of this year" or "to be launched at the same time as the iPhone 18 series", the panel-side production plan is still progressing step by step.

In addition to the screen, the most critical UTG (ultra-thin flexible glass) for folding screens has also made progress. South Korean glass processor UTI recently revealed that they will begin mass production of this special glass for a large North American customer in the second half of this year. Although the company did not identify its customer clearly, the market generally believed that its service target was Apple.

Although UTI has recently faced some capital redemption pressure, many investors are still optimistic about its subsequent stock price performance because it has received orders from Apple.