Sharp bolsters mobile OLED display competition with launch of AQUOS Zero


If there ever was a market that could do with more competition, it's the OLED smartphone display industry. Samsung has long ruled the roost with its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, with LG and Sony several paces behind. There are other, less visible players in the market, of course, but overall it's a relatively small group, considering the panels are now a hallmark of premium handsets. A new competitor has entered the market as of today, however. Japan's Sharp has announced that it will offer OLED panels in its new smartphones this year starting with the AQUOS Zero, and also plans to sell displays to other manufacturers.

Sharp is already a supplier of liquid crystal display (LCD) screens, selling to customers including Apple. Its move into OLED displays was somewhat inevitable, considering the thinness and lightness of OLED panels compared to LCDS, and capability to produce deeper shades of black. Still, the Foxconn-owned company is moving cautiously, since the shift from LCD to OLED has been slower than expected due to high prices. Those prices, in turn, are driven by an intensive production process.

"The momentum for OLED panels is waning compared to a year ago and is unlikely to pick up immediately," senior Sharp executive Katsuaki Nomura told Reuters in July.

So far, Sharp has invested 57.4 billion ($505 million) to produce OLED panels, which is much below the planned 200 billion yen investment announced by Foxconn in 2016. The company also hasn't inked any deals with manufacturers yet. Instead, the AQUOS Zero (shown in header image) marks its first foray into the market. It features a 6.2-inch 2992 x 1440 pixel OLED display made by the company itself. the device also features a 3,000 mAh battery, Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB of RAM and 12GB of storage. It will initially go on sale in Japan.


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