The smartphone display market is settling into a new normal after last year’s euphoria. TrendForce projects smartphone panel shipments of roughly 2.093 billion units in 2025, a 3.2% decline from the approximately 2.157 billion shipped in 2024, which had been the fastest growth year the market had seen in some time at 11.4% year-on-year. That kind of bounce was never going to repeat. On the finished-device side, IDC forecasts about 1.25 billion smartphones shipped in 2025, up a modest 1.5%, with the persistent gap between panel shipments and device shipments reflecting inventory building, scrap, and the replacement aftermarket, all structural features of this industry.
But the correction in volume is not the real story. Underneath the softer headline numbers, two shifts that crystallized in 2024 are only accelerating: AMOLED has overtaken TFT-LCD in smartphone displays, according to Omdia, and Chinese suppliers now command roughly 70% of global panel volume, according to TrendForce. Together, those facts are redrawing the competitive map for panel makers, phone OEMs, and everyone in between.
The Technology Pivot
The quarterly data makes the AMOLED trajectory easy to see. In 3Q25, total smartphone panel shipments came in at about 586 million units, up 8.1% quarter-on-quarter and 5.3% year-on-year. AMOLED accounted for roughly 246 million of those, LCD for the remaining 340 million. Both grew, but AMOLED is gaining share faster, particularly in mid-range and premium segments where flexible and LTPO architectures command higher ASPs. AMOLED demand has been “robust” through 2025, as TrendForce puts it, carrying forward the momentum that first pushed it past TFT-LCD in 2024.
What makes the shift interesting is what it leaves behind. LTPS LCD demand is gradually weakening, especially in mid-to-low-end phones, and the technology is getting squeezed from both ends. AMOLED is pulling demand away from above, while amorphous silicon (a-Si) LCD continues to hold the entry tier on the strength of its cost advantages in replacement and emerging markets. TrendForce expects AMOLED and a-Si to be the two dominant smartphone display technologies going forward. LTPS is the technology with no natural constituency left.
BOE is expected to ship around 630 million smartphone panels in 2025, up modestly from the approximately 613 million that led the world in 2024. Samsung Display, which ranked second with 378 million units in 2024, faces a projected 3.5% decline to roughly 365 million as Apple continues diversifying its OLED sourcing. Then there is CSOT, which posted an 83.2% year-on-year surge to about 215 million panels in 2024 and is projected to reach approximately 223 million in 2025. Tianma shipped 158 million in 2024 and is on track for roughly 10% growth.
The collective picture is stark. Chinese panel makers, led by BOE, CSOT, Tianma, Visionox, and HKC, held about 69.8% of smartphone panel shipments in 2024 and are expected to cross 70% in 2025. Korean makers, Samsung Display and LG Display, remain concentrated in high-end flexible and rigid AMOLED for Apple and flagship Androids, but their share of total units keeps shrinking. In entry-level a-Si LCD, BOE holds over 30% segment share, with HKC and CSOT expanding behind it. The volume story belongs to China. The question is whether the value story does, too.
The OLED Ramp and Its Complications
BOE is targeting 170 million flexible AMOLED shipments in 2025, a 21% increase over the nearly 140 million it shipped in 2024. That sounds like a clean growth story, but it comes with caveats. BOE fell short of its original 2024 target due to technical issues at its Chongqing Gen-6 AMOLED line and intense price competition. On the positive side, the company cites increased LTPO capacity and more than 40% growth in foldable OLED shipments, with Huawei, Honor, Oppo, Nubia, and OnePlus providing the pull.
The Apple supply chain is where the story gets really interesting, and really unforgiving. Samsung Display remains the largest iPhone OLED supplier in 2025, according to UBI Research, with LG Display’s share rising as it ramps production for the iPhone 17 and iPad OLED programs. UBI projects LG Display’s 2025 iPhone share at 30.3% and BOE’s at 16.4%. Looking ahead to 2026, UBI’s outlook calls for Samsung Display supplying about 120 million panels, LG Display 85 million, and BOE 55 million, a mix that includes roughly 10 million panels for a foldable iPhone from Samsung and additional bar-type units from LG Display.
But BOE’s iPhone ambitions have run into a wall. Reports indicate that its iPhone OLED yields deteriorated again in late 2025, forcing Apple to shift millions of panel orders for iPhone 15, 16, and 17 models back to Samsung Display. BOE reportedly shipped around 40 million iPhone OLED panels in 2024 but likely fell short of that figure in 2025. Korean press, citing UBI data, puts BOE’s installed iPhone OLED capacity at up to 100 million units annually, yet actual shipments in early 2025 ran closer to 10 to 11 million in the first quarter, well behind Samsung Display and LG Display. The gap between installed capacity and realized shipments tells you everything about how difficult it is to meet Apple’s quality and yield requirements at scale. Winning a spot in that supply chain and holding it are two very different things.
Opportunities and Threats
The opportunities are not hard to spot. AMOLED penetration in the mid-range is still early, and every percentage point of share gained from LTPS LCD lifts the average selling price for panel makers with OLED capacity. Foldable form factors, while still a small slice of total units, are growing at double-digit rates and carry significantly higher panel ASPs. The iPad and other tablet OLED programs are opening new volume sockets for suppliers that can meet the size and uniformity requirements. And for Chinese panel makers broadly, the sheer scale of their combined a-Si and AMOLED output gives them pricing leverage and a clear path to further share consolidation.
The threats are just as real. The 2025 correction, coming off 2024’s unusually strong rebound, is a reminder that growth in this market is never linear. LTPS LCD suppliers face structural decline with no obvious path to recovery. BOE’s yield issues with Apple show that any quality stumble at the premium tier redirects orders to competitors who may not give that share back easily. And while Samsung Display’s unit volume is declining, its grip on high-end iPhone and flagship Android OLED, where margins are highest, remains firm. For Chinese suppliers chasing the premium tier, the technical bar keeps rising even as the volume story plays in their favor.
The smartphone panel market in 2025 is not a story of OLED replacing LCD in a clean sweep. It is a story of bifurcation: AMOLED and a-Si as the two surviving display pillars, Chinese makers consolidating volume share while Korean makers defend value share, and the Apple supply chain functioning as both the industry’s most coveted prize and its most punishing proving ground.
| Year | Brand | Supplier | Approx. Panels | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 (proj.) | Apple | Samsung Display | Largest share (exact units not public) | Remains primary iPhone OLED supplier for 2025. |
| 2025 (proj.) | Apple | LG Display | 30.3% share of iPhone OLED | Ramps with iPhone 17 and iPad OLED programs. |
| 2025 (proj.) | Apple | BOE | 16.4% share of iPhone OLED | Participation constrained by yield and quality issues. |
| 2026 (proj.) | Apple | Samsung Display | ~120M panels | Includes about 10M panels for a foldable iPhone. |
| 2026 (proj.) | Apple | LG Display | ~85M panels | Focus on bar-type and tablet-class OLED. |
| 2026 (proj.) | Apple | BOE | ~55M panels | Aims to prove technical competitiveness after prior yield problems. |
