Over One Billion Smartphones Globally Have an OLED Screen

OLED displays are now the industry standard for high-end smartphones, with most of the major manufacturers’ flagships featuring the tech. In fact, there were over a billion phones with OLED screens on the market in July 2018 — up from 720 million in July 2016 (growth of 41%).

But what exactly is OLED? Without getting too far into the technical side of things, OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays are brighter and more efficient than LCD displays, which were the previous standard for high-end phones. OLED screens are also thinner, lighter, and typically allow for faster refresh rates. When OLED was an emerging tech, it was incredibly expensive to manufacture, but now that production costs are decreasing, OLED smartphones are becoming increasingly more prominent on the market. LCD, however, is still the most common screen type.

We recently added OLED as a metric in our pioneering Global Smartphone and Tablet Tracker. Using this data, we decided to take a closer look at the OLED smartphone ecosystem.

OLED May Be the New High-End Standard, But LCD Is Still Going Strong

Consumer adoption of OLED smartphones has been steadily increasing: 30.4% of all active smartphones in July 2018 featured the displays, compared to 26.2% in July 2016. The market that contributed the most to this number was China, accounting for 258 million devices in July 2018 (25.4% of the world’s active OLED smartphones). The U.S. had the second-most OLED smartphones, with a global share of 9.8% — down from 9.9% in July 2016.

Despite OLED’s growing popularity, LCD screens, which are much cheaper to produce, are clearly more prevalent overall. As of July 2018, 62.5% of all active smartphones had an LCD display — a figure that has remained relatively stable over the past year. This is in part due to the large number of low-and mid-spec smartphones (made by brands like Xiaomi and Huawei) in markets such as India, where 67.1% of all active smartphones featured LCD screens. The high number of older iPhones across the world is another contributing factor, as all Apple smartphones prior to 2017’s iPhone X featured an LCD screen. The iPhone 8 and the just-released iPhone XR also feature an LCD display.

Chinese Brands on the Rise: Oppo and Vivo Alone Account for Almost a Fifth of OLED Smartphones

Samsung has enjoyed the highest market share of OLED smartphones for quite some time now. The Korean company is actually a manufacturer of OLED screens — not only for Samsung devices but also for Apple, Meizu, Microsoft, Lenovo, and ZTE smartphones (among others). Naturally, Samsung was one of the earliest proponents of OLED, with the first Samsung Galaxy smartphone — released in 2009 — already featuring the then-revolutionary tech. However, the company’s majority is shrinking as more and more brands use OLED tech. But this is no issue for the Korean tech giant, as it still gets a cut for manufacturing the displays. As of July 2018, Samsung smartphones accounted for 70.5% of phones with OLED displays, down from 80.6% in July 2017 and 87% in July 2016.

Chinese brands Oppo and Vivo — the #2 and #3 manufacturers of phones with OLED screens, respectively — have been gradually increasing their respective shares of OLED phones. Oppo’s share grew from 4.6% in July 2016 to 9.3% in July 2018, while Vivo’s increased from 3.5% in July 2016 to 8.7% in July 2018. Together, the two brands accounted for close to a fifth of active OLED smartphones in July 2018. Needless to say, these two companies have had a big impact on increasing the OLED market in general.

Apple, which first adopted the tech in last year’s iPhone X, was already the global #4 in July 2018, accounting for 5.3% of OLED phones. This share will only increase in the coming years, as the American tech giant continues to release and sell more flagship devices with OLED displays. In fact, three new iPhones recently hit the market, and two of them (the iPhone XS and XS Max) feature an OLED screen. The most comprehensive and efficient way to track OLED and metrics such as screen size, GPU, CPU, and RAM? Newzoo’s Global Smartphone and Tablet Tracker!

Apple, which first adopted the tech in last year’s iPhone X, was already the global #4 in July 2018, accounting for 5.3% of OLED phones. This share will only increase in the coming years, as the American tech giant continues to release and sell more flagship devices with OLED displays. In fact, three new iPhones recently hit the market, and two of them (the iPhone XS and XS Max) feature an OLED screen. The most comprehensive and efficient way to track OLED and metrics such as screen size, GPU, CPU, and RAM? Newzoo’s Global Smartphone and Tablet Tracker!

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