Sharp Corp, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) Japanese subsidiary, would start supplying OLED displays for smartphones to Hon Hai this summer at the earliest, Sharp president and chief executive officer Tai Jeng-wu (戴正吳) said yesterday.
“Sharp will have mass production capability for OLED displays used in smartphones as soon as this quarter, but the shipping schedule is estimated to be between June and September to meet product launch schedules,” Tai told reporters after a news conference in Taipei.
Tai did not disclose the identity of the clients for whom Sharp would be supplying the displays.
The company is reportedly eyeing a share in the supply chain of Apple Inc’s OLED-screen iPhone X, of which Hon Hai is the sole assembler.
Samsung Electronics Co dominates OLED display technology in the smartphone industry and is the sole supplier for the iPhone X.
Although Samsung is ahead of its rivals, Sharp has been stepping up its efforts to catch up with the South Korean company in OLED display development, Tai said.
Sharp’s board in October last year approved an investment in technology related to small OLED screens and the company last month produced sample OLED displays for handsets, he said.
Sharp would also introduce a new smartphone featuring an OLED screen under its own brand in June or July, Tai said.
Sharp would be the first Japanese company to have the capability to produce OLED displays for smartphones, the Nikkei newspaper reported earlier this month.
Japan Display Inc, Sharp’s Japanese peer, is expected to begin mass production of small OLED displays by next year at the earliest, it said.
In related news, Sharp Taiwan yesterday announced a collaboration with Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) Yongling Organic Farm (永齡農場) to sell Sharp refrigerators with the farm’s mix-and-match vegetables in Taiwan in a bid to expand the two companies’ presence in the domestic market.
The farm is to supply up to 26 weeks of vegetable sets free of charge to people who purchase Sharp refrigerators on the farm’s Web site, Sharp’s Taiwan branch said.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
RSS