Tweets from an influential journalist suggest that Samsung is completely out of AMOLED supply because Apple placed a gigantic order, thus temporarily suspending production of Galaxy S and Wave phones.
Eldar Murtazin, a notable mobile phone insider based in Russia, posted numerous Tweets making such statements as , “Samsung sold out all quantities of superamoled to Apple. For 2011,” and “Samsung Wave and Samsung Galaxy S arent in production anymore.”
Samsung, which has a monopolistic-like hold on the production of mobile displays, is the leader in development of AMOLED and Super AMOLED technology. Because so many manufacturers rely on its displays, Samsung has occasionally had trouble meeting demand. That’s what led to shortages of Motorola’s Droid X and HTC’s Evo 4G, among other high-profile handsets.
In fact, HTC had to switch to a different form of display for its phones because of the AMOLED shortage.
So, Apple buying up all of Samsung’s supply wholesale would certainly be a way for the company to ensure it doesn’t face those shortage problems. It could potentially need a lot of displays for the assumedly-upcoming iPad 2. But it seems crazy that Samsung would put its own phones on hold to be able to produce enough components for its competitor.
Samsung is currently working on developing a huge new facility to ramp up its mobile display production. Starting next year it will be able to grow its manufacturing capacity exponentially.
Nevertheless, it’s a good problem for Samsung to have. Hopefully the market for mobile displays doesn’t completely open up and render Samsung’s multi-million-dollar investment useless.
