In late December Patently Apple posted a report titled "A Report from China claims that BOE has Officially Passed Apple's Certification and is set to begin OLED shipments in early 2021." With Apple giving BOE the green light, Samsung has decided to use flexible OLED displays for their Galaxy M-Series smartphones.

Samsung's Galaxy M-Series smartphones are competitively priced and designed to sell on mass online retailers like Amazon. It's not really about "cheap" as the phone simply lacks some features that a segment of the market don't care about. Features like Samsung Pay, Bixby digital assistant, Knox Security and so forth.

The quality of the display is even better that those on their Galaxy A-Series phones. It offers a 1080 x 2340 pixel Super AMOLED 6.4" screen with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. In order to keep the Galaxy M-Series competitive, Samsung has reportedly made a deal with China's BOE.

Korea's ETNews reports that BOE, the biggest display manufacturer in China, is preparing to supply its OLED displays for Samsung Electronics’ smartphones for the first time. Particularly, the company’s OLEDs will be "flexible OLEDs" that are one of major products of South Korean display manufacturers.

BOE’s supply of OLED displays is expected to have a significant impact on South Korea’s display industry as the industry is seeing a rapid growth of China’s display industry and as Samsung Electronics has chosen OLED panels from BOE that is the biggest competitor to South Korea’s display industry.

According to the industry on March 21, it is reported that Samsung Electronics plans to use BOE’s flexible OLEDs for part of the Galaxy M series models that are expected to be released in the second half this year.

It is almost certain that Samsung Electronics will use BOE’s flexible OLEDs as the specific standard has been set for displays that will be used for the models and Samsung Electronics also selected relevant components such as driver IC and touch IC. Schedule for production has also been set for July.

Flexible OLED indicates an OLED that is based on a flexible substrate. Instead of a rigid glass substrate, it uses a plastic material (polyimide) which allows the display to be bent. Flexible OLED is categorized as a premium product. Due to its light weight, thinness, and degree of freedom in design, it can be used for edge smartphones that have the edges bent or foldable smartphones that can have the screens folded and unfolded.

South Korean display manufacturers have been the leaders in flexible OLED. Samsung Display became the first in the industry to develop flexible OLED and commercialized it for the first time through Samsung Electronics’ smartphone 'Galaxy Round” in 2013. LG Display also succeeded in mass-production of flexible OLEDs in 2017 which allowed the company and Samsung Display to be the leaders in the global market for small and medium-sized OLEDs.

Samsung Electronics accepting BOE’s products indicates that BOE’s technical skills, quality, and price have met Samsung Electronics’ standards. This could open the door for more transactions between the two companies in the future.

BOE needed to fill the production gap that was caused by Huawei's crash in sales due to U.S. sanctions. Reportedly BOE made Samsung a deal that they couldn't refuse to keep their small OLED display production humming.