In domestic flagship smartphones, Samsung screens are becoming increasingly rare. Last year, among Samsung Display's shipments to Chinese manufacturers, high-end flexible OLEDs accounted for only about 5%, with the rest almost entirely being mid-to-low-end rigid OLED orders.

In mid-September, Samsung Display's South Korean headquarters welcomed a large group of Chinese media personnel. They were not invited by Samsung but were brought by iQOO. Samsung Display specifically hosted a screen technology launch event for iQOO at its headquarters.

This event was quite rare in the past. While cooperation between the two sides is not uncommon—iQOO's flagship phones have long used Samsung screens—the key lies in Samsung's attitude. Samsung Display, which once only had eyes for the iPhone, not only hosted its first-ever launch event at its headquarters for a single brand but also provided the latest M-series materials and established a separate custom screen production line for iQOO.

Behind Samsung's heightened attention lies a shifting supply-demand dynamic in mobile phone screens. Back in the day, domestic smartphone manufacturers adhered to the principle of "no Samsung, no flagship," with consumers favoring Samsung and manufacturers having no choice. Samsung only needed to provide standardized OLED products, and manufacturers would still line up to pay deposits.

Interestingly, a few weeks later, OnePlus and BOE also held a screen technology launch event. The two sides have been collaborating on screen research since 2022, spanning four generations, featuring new display materials and a global 165Hz ultra-high refresh rate. Back in the day, the OnePlus 7 Pro spent nearly 100 million yuan in R&D to customize a screen from Samsung. Now, OnePlus has fully embraced domestic screens.

In fact, over the past two years, except for a few models like iQOO, most domestic flagship phones have been using domestic screens. Compared to the past when they had to rely on Samsung's whims, domestic smartphone manufacturers and domestic screen manufacturers have found a perfect match. The former gains better pricing and room for product differentiation, while the latter absorbs capacity and gains opportunities to refine their flagship products.

From Huawei and BOE earlier on to Xiaomi and TCL CSOT, OPPO and Tianma, vivo and Visionox later, collaborations have ranged from joint laboratories to dedicated production lines. Thanks to the combined efforts of the vast domestic market and domestic smartphone manufacturers, domestic screen manufacturers are gradually eating into Samsung's market share.

However, just as people thought domestic screen manufacturers would replicate their LCD market success against Korean manufacturers in the OLED market, a black swan event in the form of rising storage costs once again disrupted their breakthrough rhythm. Domestic screen manufacturers, who had already invested heavily in 8.6-generation OLED production lines, once again fell into collective losses. Meanwhile, Samsung, leveraging its technological edge in OLED and its partnership with Apple, not only saw its profit margins grow but even regained some high-end market share.

After more than two decades of fierce competition between Chinese and Korean screen manufacturers, the LCD battlefield has quieted down, while in the OLED arena, Chinese manufacturers have temporarily won in terms of scale, and Korean manufacturers have earned profits.

01

In 2025, a Bilibili user initiated a large-scale "LCD Self-Help Signature Campaign." They created groups, recruited participants, and filled out questionnaires, planning to negotiate with smartphone manufacturers with thousands of signatures in hand, urging them to produce phones with LCD screens.

This attempt to turn back the clock ultimately failed to change history. Faced with OLED screens that are thin, flexible, self-emissive, and support dynamic refresh rates, LCD's advantages have dwindled.

Smartphone screens have roughly gone through two stages: LCD and OLED.

The earliest iPhones used LCD screens, and the iPhone remained a holdout for LCDs. Although the iPhone X started using OLED screens, some phone lines continued to use LCDs until 2024. It is widely believed that LCDs, with their standard RGB arrangement and lack of low-frequency flicker, are more eye-friendly, while early OLEDs could not achieve high-frequency PWM dimming at low brightness levels. This is why many people insist on the slogan "LCD forever."

However, China's LCD panel industry started behind Japan and South Korea. From BOE's costly acquisition of Hyundai's liquid crystal business in 2003 to its independent plant construction in 2008, domestic LCD displays remained the fourth-largest imported good after oil, iron ore, and chips until 2014. The lack of chips and screens was once a collective memory of China's industry.

Domestic screen manufacturers and local governments decided to invest counter-cyclically, just as Korean manufacturers had done to overtake Japanese ones, doubling down despite losses. In 2008, Hefei, to support BOE's high-generation production line, chose to halt subway construction and invest a year's fiscal revenue in BOE. Before the boom in new energy and storage, Hefei became famous for betting on the panel industry.

The peak of domestic LCD production capacity occurred between 2017 and 2019. According to securities firm data, domestic panel manufacturers launched 13 new LCD production lines during this period, with total investment exceeding 450 billion yuan.

Soon after, with the explosion in domestic LCD production capacity, LCD panel prices plummeted. Korean manufacturers like Samsung and LG were forced to surrender. In 2022, Samsung closed its last LCD production line. The following year, LG sold its last LCD production line in Guangzhou to TCL CSOT, marking the complete exit of Korean manufacturers from the LCD market.

Although LCDs remain mainstream in large-screen markets like PCs and TVs, and mature LCD technology has provided substantial profits for late-coming domestic screen manufacturers, supporting their first successful overtaking of Korean manufacturers, LCDs are no longer popular in small-screen devices like smartphones.

Smartphone manufacturers know full well that the slogan "LCD forever" is ultimately just wishful thinking from netizens. Especially as OLED prices continue to decline, LCDs, which once had a place in the mid-to-low-end market, are being aggressively squeezed out by OLEDs.

After unprofitable Korean manufacturers voluntarily exited the LCD market, they concentrated their resources on the OLED sector, where they had clear advantages and generous profits. This strategy now seems wise, as OLEDs, with their superior display effects, thinner and flexible designs, are gradually replacing LCDs in the smartphone market, becoming the preferred screen choice for flagship phones. As early as 2024, global OLED screen shipments surpassed LCDs for the first time, marking a historic structural shift in smartphone screens. In China's fiercely competitive market, this transition occurred even earlier, in 2021.

The Koreans are quite shrewd, preferring to keep the best technology for themselves. Although Samsung mass-produced the first AMOLED phone in 2009, it was mainly used in its own flagship models. Not until 2015, when Samsung found its flagship sales sluggish and OLED production capacity surged with new lines coming online, did it start large-scale selling OLED screens externally.

Smartphone manufacturers' pursuit gave Samsung tremendous confidence and made it exceptionally assertive in its supply strategy. Back then, a popular saying in the industry went: "Samsung keeps the top-tier screens for itself, gives first-class screens to Apple, and only offers average screens to domestic manufacturers."

This is something Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, likely feels deeply. In 2015, a thriving Xiaomi offended Samsung. The incident occurred when Xiaomi's supply chain executive spoke disrespectfully to a Samsung China executive, who then emailed the complaint to headquarters. Ultimately, Samsung decided to cut off OLED screen supplies to Xiaomi.

Later, Lei Jun took personal charge of the supply chain, toasting and pleading with industry friends to convey messages to Samsung, and even made multiple trips to South Korea to apologize. Eventually, Samsung agreed to resume screen supplies to Xiaomi two years later, but several Xiaomi flagship products had to delay their launches due to the screen supply crisis. This episode was later documented in Xiaomi's authorized official biography.

In fact, HTC, led by Cher Wang, also faced screen supply issues from Samsung. Samsung, envious of HTC's phone sales, cut off its screen supplies. Cher Wang twice visited South Korea but failed to persuade Samsung, later lamenting, "When Samsung wanted to do the Galaxy, they canceled our orders to supply their own products. It's a very sad thing."

Moreover, Samsung Display rarely met customers' individual needs, resulting in everyone receiving the same products for a long time, making it difficult to differentiate in terms of user experience. Lu Weibing once said, "In the past, imported screen parameters were fixed. We could only buy what they sold, unable to add our own thinking or optimizations."

02

In 2018, Samsung Display's OLED market share once exceeded 90%, leaving competitors far behind. Even Apple, a dominant player, was at Samsung's mercy regarding screen supplies. At that time, domestic manufacturers had just started mass-producing OLEDs, with a combined market share of only 4%.

However, China excels at scale. With domestic screen manufacturers relentlessly pursuing OLED technology, Samsung Display's OLED smartphone panel market share fell below 70% for the first time in 2021. In the following years, Samsung's share continued to decline year by year. By 2024, domestic OLED shipments also surpassed those of Korean manufacturers for the first time. Among the flagship models launched at the end of that year, only the realme GT7 Pro continued to use Samsung OLED screens, while other mainstream brands chose domestic screens.

Realizing the unfavorable trend, Samsung once hoped to regain market share by introducing new screen products in China. However, reality did not unfold as Samsung expected. Last year, among Samsung Display's shipments to Chinese manufacturers, high-end flexible OLEDs accounted for only about 5%, with the rest almost entirely being mid-to-low-end rigid OLED orders.

Nowadays, foldable screens have become one of Samsung Display's few remaining strongholds in the Chinese market. OV's foldable phones currently adopt a strategy of using Samsung screens for the inner display and domestic screens for the outer display, balancing product performance and cost. Huawei and Xiaomi have gone even further, with their high-end product lines hardly featuring Samsung screens anymore.

However, the domestic OLED shipment surge against Korean manufacturers was not smooth sailing. In 2019, actor Zhou Dongyu posed a cringe-worthy question on Zhihu: "Is the Zhou Dongyu arrangement any good?" This question garnered 10 million views on Zhihu.

This technical term named after Zhou Dongyu was actually a joke by netizens. When screens are magnified, various sub-pixel arrangements can be seen. LCD screens, being backlit, can achieve a standard RGB arrangement. However, OLEDs are self-emissive, and blue light-emitting materials have the shortest lifespan, making the arrangement of blue sub-pixels and extending their lifespan a significant challenge.

Domestic manufacturers made many attempts to circumvent Samsung's patents, but early technological immaturity resulted in screens appearing gray and not transparent enough, being ridiculed as "rag screens." Moreover, because the screens resembled Zhou Dongyu's "duckling gaze" emoji under a microscope, netizens jokingly called it the "Zhou Dongyu arrangement."

While Zhou Dongyu could laugh off the embarrassment with self-deprecating humor, domestic manufacturers faced considerable consumer criticism over this issue.

Huawei was the first to adopt domestic OLED screens in its flagship models. In 2018, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro's flexible OLED screen was supplied by BOE and LG. Later, due to U.S. sanctions, Korean screen manufacturers successively cut off supplies to Huawei, which then switched to several major domestic screen manufacturers.

In 2019, Huawei and BOE officially signed an agreement. Huawei promised to treat BOE as a "strategic supplier," while BOE committed to giving Huawei "strategic customer" status. BOE's and Tianma's screen shipments nearly multiplied several times that year. Half of the OLED timeline BOE later displayed in its PPTs featured Huawei phones. Honor, spun off from the Huawei system, also primarily used domestic screens across its product lines.

However, early domestic OLED screens were underwhelming, with late starts, insufficient technological accumulation, and low yield rates. Smartphone manufacturers had to adopt a mixed screen strategy for a long time, with users comparing buying a phone to scratching a lottery ticket, drawing considerable consumer complaints.

While Huawei supported BOE, Xiaomi chose TCL CSOT. In 2020, Xiaomi's digital flagship used a TCL CSOT screen for the first time, marking TCL CSOT's first mass-produced flexible OLED. Xiaomi's support gave the new entrant an opportunity. However, due to the pandemic, supply uncertainty existed. Xiaomi's strategy was to use Samsung screens initially and switch to TCL CSOT later. Although the mixed screen approach was heavily criticized at the time, TCL CSOT's progress was evident, and Xiaomi's flagship products, including foldable phones, have long used TCL CSOT screens.

Interestingly, shortly after iQOO held a launch event at Samsung Display's headquarters, it also hosted a screen technology launch event with Visionox at Tsinghua University. Such a diversified supply system has become very common in the screen industry, with mainstream smartphone manufacturers generally using screens from multiple suppliers. This has given smartphone manufacturers greater bargaining power amid the current screen production capacity glut.

Moreover, compared to Samsung's assertiveness, domestic screen manufacturers are highly cooperative. Xiaomi's collaboration with TCL CSOT involved Xiaomi's screen team directly stationed at the panel factory, specifically opening new production lines for non-standard screen specifications. OPPO also enjoyed this high-level treatment, with Tianma exclusively customizing and building a top-spec screen production line for OPPO. BOE annually provided OnePlus with its best screens. According to Li Jie of OnePlus, BOE made significant concessions and sacrifices for the new production line.

During the period when domestic screens were not trusted, support and endorsements from a batch of domestic manufacturers not only provided domestic screen manufacturers with substantial orders but also gave them opportunities to refine their technology and products for flagship screens.

Meanwhile, domestic screen manufacturers aggressively invested in OLED production, with over a dozen 6th-generation OLED production lines. As a manufacturing powerhouse, once the supply chain matures, China ensures ample supply and sharply declining prices.

03

However, while Chinese manufacturers dominate in scale, the profits are going to the Koreans.

In 2025, Samsung Display's operating profit reached 22 billion yuan, higher than the combined profits of all Chinese screen manufacturers. Domestic OLED production lines are still generally operating at a loss.

Samsung Display can capture almost all industry profits for two main reasons: early Layout (layout), stable production capacity, and significant technological advantages.

Samsung has built a deep moat in the OLED sector with its three trump cards: manufacturing equipment, pixel arrangement, and light-emitting materials. Back then, Samsung monopolized Japan's Tokki advanced vapor deposition machines by signing exclusive agreements with upstream equipment manufacturers, making them unattainable for other manufacturers even with money. It was not until 2017 that BOE acquired an advanced vapor deposition machine.

As the path of equipment monopoly began to fail, Samsung resorted to its patent cudgel once again. Starting from 2022, Samsung Display has filed multiple lawsuits against BOE, accusing the latter of stealing its OLED patents. By 2025, the two sides finally reached a settlement, with BOE paying Samsung billions of yuan in patent royalties.

Among the cases Samsung filed against BOE, three were related to pixel arrangement structures. Samsung pioneered PenTile and Diamond Pixel arrangements, which are relatively reliable solutions in the industry but come with patent barriers.

Secondly, although Samsung has lost a significant number of screen orders from Chinese smartphone manufacturers, it has firmly secured its partnership with iPhone.

The stable shipments of iPhone in the high-end market have contributed a steady stream of profits and cash flow to its supply chain. Apart from its own usage, a substantial portion of Samsung's global OLED shipments comes from iPhone. This is also why Samsung prioritizes providing its latest technologies to iPhone every year.

However, while Samsung and Apple appear harmonious on the surface, both have their own hidden agendas. Apple has long been displeased with Samsung. Not to mention the inherent business conflicts between the two companies, the fact that a single supplier dominates the market is never a good thing.

Even a powerful company like Apple has often had to bow to Samsung's demands. Back then, when Apple's security personnel wanted to enter Samsung's display module assembly plant in Vietnam, Samsung stipulated that while people could enter, they had to be escorted, keep moving continuously, and not stop at all. The Information even described the cooperation between the two sides as 'the unhappiest marriage in the tech industry.' Therefore, over the years, Apple has intentionally supported LG and BOE to reduce the market share of a single supplier and seize the opportunity to negotiate lower prices with Samsung.

In 2020, BOE began supplying OLED screens to iPhone for the first time. However, at that time, Apple only gave BOE orders for some officially refurbished models and after-sales channels. With the iPhone 13, Apple started to assign BOE some orders for the standard version, accounting for about 10% of iPhone's market share. Although not the main player, BOE finally got a seat at the table.

Unfortunately, BOE failed to live up to expectations. In the following years, BOE was repeatedly exposed to issues of low product yield and insufficient technology. Especially when iPhone fully transitioned to LTPO OLED, BOE's supply position for iPhone further declined. The latest iPhone 18 Pro series is now entirely supplied by South Korean manufacturers, while Samsung exclusively provides the screens for the most profitable iPhone foldable models. BOE has lowered its shipment expectations for Apple from 40 million units in 2025 to 30 million units in 2026.

After all these years, BOE has mostly secured orders for standard and entry-level models, while iPhone's highest-end Pro models have remained the domain of Samsung and LG. BOE's role in Apple's supply chain was once considered a bargaining chip for Apple to ensure supply stability and negotiate lower prices with Samsung.

Especially in recent years, as smartphone prices have soared, the domestic high-end market has been increasingly eroded by iPhone. Samsung Display has also enjoyed prosperous times alongside iPhone. According to Omdia, in 2025, Samsung Display accounted for approximately 56.8% of iPhone's screen supply share, reaching a record high, while BOE's share was significantly compressed to about 1.4%. Especially with LTPO surpassing LTPS as the dominant technology for flexible AMOLED, Apple has found itself increasingly reliant on Samsung.

04

Just when people thought domestic display manufacturers would continue to make gains in the OLED market and replicate their success in the LCD era, the storage price hike driven by AI became a black swan event for the entire industry. Storage manufacturers have made a fortune, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix's stock prices soaring and dividends reaching eye-popping levels.

However, display manufacturers are collectively going through tough times. Storage and displays are two entirely different components with no direct functional connection. But unexpectedly, a butterfly effect occurred. Due to the sharp increase in storage prices, smartphone prices have risen unprecedentedly, severely affecting smartphone shipments. According to the latest data, smartphone shipments have hit a decade-low, and the reduction in overall device shipments has indirectly impacted display demand.

While a reduction in shipments could be weathered, the sharp compression of profits is a bigger issue. On one hand, smartphone manufacturers have had to raise prices, with the latest flagship models generally increasing by 1,000 to 2,000 yuan. On the other hand, they have shifted cost pressures to suppliers like display manufacturers, forcing them to lower prices and control overall device costs as much as possible.

Chips, storage, and displays are the three major cost components in smartphones. For chips, there is little choice as Qualcomm and MediaTek dominate the market. Due to the surge in AI demand, storage is in short supply, and it is no longer a matter of negotiating prices but even having money may not guarantee availability. However, displays are different. As a major cost item, there are many alternative options for displays, with four or five major domestic display manufacturers and even excess capacity.

Ultimately, displays, which have done nothing wrong, have become the primary target for smartphone companies to cut costs. According to IDC, the average price of flexible OLED smartphone panels in the first half of 2026 dropped by 17% year-on-year. Some institutions even predict that the price drop in the second half of the year will exceed 20%.

When there's meat to eat, you're not invited; when there's a beating, you never miss it. Display manufacturers have fallen into losses one after another. Both BOE and Tianma attributed their losses to storage price hikes and shrinking demand in their financial reports.

South Korean display manufacturers have also been significantly affected. For the screen of the iPhone X, Samsung sold each unit for $110, and this price remained firm for years. However, for the iPhone 18 Pro, the screen price was required to drop to $70. The president of Samsung Display even publicly complained, 'Device manufacturers continue to put pressure on panel companies, demanding significant price reductions for components.'

The display industry is a typical capital-intensive sector, with each production line requiring tens of billions of yuan in investment. Once equipment is purchased and factories are built, even if production is halted, significant depreciation costs are incurred.

However, Samsung Display's main OLED production lines, A3 and A4, began mass production in 2015 and 2018, respectively. Given the 5-to-7-year depreciation period in the panel industry, these two production lines have already completed equipment depreciation, significantly reducing profit pressure. In contrast, BOE's three 6th-generation flexible lines will not emerge from their painful period until next year or the year after. In 2025, BOE's depreciation and amortization expenses totaled 38.7 billion yuan, 6.6 times its net profit attributable to shareholders. As for the 8.6th-generation OLED production lines invested in by manufacturers such as BOE, TCL Huaxing, and Visionox, most of them began mass production in the past two years, and the depreciation pressure has not truly begun.

In the first half of this year, the average operating rate of domestic OLED panel production lines was 68%, down 10 percentage points year-on-year. BOE has clearly stated that it will not consider increasing capital expenditures on new OLED production lines in the short term.

In 2019, BOE set an ambitious dual-billion-dollar goal: to achieve $100 billion in revenue and $100 billion in market capitalization. At that time, the timeline given was 10-15 years, but now that half the time has passed, BOE is still far from achieving these two billion-dollar goals.

However, domestic display manufacturers have not made no progress in technological breakthroughs in recent years. For example, in terms of pixel arrangements, BOE has its 'Blue Diamond Pixel,' Visionox has its ' Ding shaped arrangement (Ding-shaped Pixel),' and TCL Huaxing has its 'Full RGB/Pearl Pixel.' The gap in emitting materials is also rapidly narrowing. BOE's latest Q-series and Huaxing's latest C-series materials claim to surpass Samsung's E-series and approach Samsung's M-series in terms of lifespan, emitting efficiency, peak brightness, and eye-protection dimming. In panel manufacturing processes, TCL Huaxing is vigorously developing printed OLED, while Visionox has its ViP photolithography process, both attempting to bypass the traditional FMM evaporation process.

Additionally, in high-frequency PWM dimming, domestic display manufacturers have also developed their own characteristics. While Samsung's mainstream screens have long used low-frequency dimming, domestic manufacturers have mass-adopted ultra-high-frequency PWM dimming, with the highest frequency reaching 4320Hz.

However, as Academician Ouyang Zhongcan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences bluntly put it, while China has achieved global leadership in liquid crystal displays, in the OLED field, we have only gone from following to running alongside, not yet leading in technology.

For example, OLED display driver chips are mainly produced by South Korean manufacturers, with the overall localization rate only surpassing 30% by 2025, and about 70% still relying on imports. The blue light material that determines panel lifespan is monopolized by American company UDC. For the key raw material of polarizers, PVA optical film, the domestic self-sufficiency rate is less than 5%, with an import dependency as high as 95%.

Especially as OLED technology continues to iterate and upgrade, from LTPS OLED to LTPO OLED, and now to the emerging LTPO+ OLED, Samsung's early accumulations and its market share in the high-end segment still pose a long-term, formidable challenge to domestic display manufacturers still mired in losses.

Nevertheless, the penetration rate of OLED in smartphones is now relatively high. The industry generally believes that the next competition point will be on larger-sized IT and TV screens. In the past, OLED screens were expensive and had low yield rates, limiting their penetration in the mid-to-large-size market. Therefore, the future mid-to-large-size OLED market will present new breakthrough opportunities for domestic display manufacturers.

However, shortcomings still need to be addressed. As Academician Ouyang Zhongcan pointed out at a recent symposium, China's display industry is still dominated by 'engineering optimization'—excelling in industrialization capabilities, process improvements, and cost control—but there are still significant gaps in foundational theories, core materials, and key equipment. 'Engineering optimization can make you go fast, but only foundational research can make you go far.'