Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has released new research notes today covering Apple supplier's Largan lead in optical lenses leading to a new glass lens that Apple may adopt in the next 2 or 3 years.

Largan and Sunny Optical are the leading manufacturers of glass-plastic hybrid lenses. Due to Largan’s more extensive production experience and its existing advantages in plastic lenses, Largan currently has a higher advantage over Sunny Optical.

Largan's new 1G6P has the advantage of offering a lower lens height and better optical performance due to the use of glass. In addition, glass-plastic hybrid lenses are more deformation-resistant (a key reason for their use in the iPhone 15 Pro Max).

The use of glass-plastic hybrid lenses in the iPhone 15 Pro Max indicates new critical trends in the lens industry, including:

• The use of molding/spherical glass in glass-plastic hybrid lenses instead of the lower performance wafer-level glass (WLG)
• 8P lenses facing competition from 1G6P, with the latter’s advantages in lower height and gradually improving cost difference compared to 8P.
• The glass-plastic hybrid lens as a better solution to solve lens deformation caused by CCM design, and,
• After Apple and Huawei’s use of glass-plastic hybrid lenses, other brands’ high-end models are likely to follow suit in the future.

The tetraprism camera in the iPhone 15 Pro Max uses Largan's new 1G3P lens exclusively with the spherical glass lens being outsourced.

If Largan’s future glass lens production capability meets Apple’s requirements in the future, the iPhone could switch to Largan’s glass lens as early as 2025 or 2026.