97.5% of OLED smartphones released in the first half of 2021 had 6.X-inch class displays according to a report by UBI Research of Korea, a specialist market research consultancy in OLED displays and applications.
Of the 122 OLED smartphones released in the first half of 2021, 119 6.X-inch smartphones were released, occupying an overwhelming share of 97.5%. Compared to the 6.X-inch smartphones released in 2018, which accounted for 78% of the total, this size range has become the mainstream of the smartphone market in just three years. One 5.X-inch model and two 8-inch class models were released, and there were no 7-inch models released at all. The three exceptions were:
- Asus’ Zenfone8 – the 5.X-inch model
- Xiaomi’s Mi Mix Fold and Huawei’s Mate X2 have 8.X-inch displays
As the display has increasingly taken over the whole of the front of the smartphone, makers have used different strategies to allow the camera to ‘look through’ the display. In the first half of 2021, most makers introduced models with round holes in the display (103/85%), followed by notches (13/10%) and narrow bezels (6/5%). Home buttons disappeared from the front of phones in 2020 and did not re-appear in 2021.
UBI also checked the ratio of the front of the smartphone that is display area compared to the bezel or frame. This ratio has been increasing over recent years as the home buttons disappeared and the cameras moved. 88.5% of 2021 new products were between 80% and 90% in display ratio. There were no new phones with less than 80% with the remaining 11.5% above 90%. The models with the highest display area ratio were:
- Huawei’s Mate 40 Pro 4G at 94.1%
- Huawei’s Nova 8 pro
- Honor’s View40
Looking at the distribution by resolution, the mainstream was in the 400~500ppi range with 64 models, accounting for 52.5%. share of the models. 48 products had less than 400ppi and 10 products had more than 500ppi. The highest resolution product was Sony’s Xperia 1 II, which recorded 643 ppi.
Finally, by country, Chinese firms released the most with 104, followed by Korea with 12, Taiwan with 4, and Japan and Germany with 1 each.
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*UBIRESEARCH http://www.ubiresearch.com
*OLEDNET http://www.olednet.com
