New opportunities for sapphire? Foreign media reports that Foxconn is building a factory to make screens for iPhone 7

Judging from the current application of sapphire materials, the demand for LEDs is expected to consume an average of 2 to 3 million pieces of production capacity per month. With the popularity of lenses and home button applications for high-end mobile phones and tablets, and the entry of Apple watch into the market next year, the application scope of sapphire materials is becoming wider and wider. The main reason for the current market's low sentiment towards sapphire materials is still the bankruptcy of GTAT. We believe that the reason for this staged failure of sapphire is technical and cost control issues. However, in the long run, as long as there is the possibility of application in new fields, the process, technology, cost and other issues of new material production will be gradually digested over time. At present, it is still too early to predict whether sapphire will be used in the next generation iPhone panel.