Apple supplier BOE has forever played a minor role in Apple's display supply chain with Samsung and LG getting the lion's share of business. That might be about to change in the coming years as BOE has two massive plants to expand their display capacity to deliver OLED displays from smartphones to tablets and notebooks.

Today we're learning that BOE's topping-out ceremony of the first domestic 8.6-generation AMOLED production line invested and built by BOE (BOE) was held in Chengdu today. The construction of the production line took only 183 days and achieved the topping-out goal ahead of schedule. A 'Topping-Out' is a construction milestone celebration.

The rapid advancement of this project will greatly promote the global OLED display industry to quickly enter the medium-sized development stage. According to reports, the total investment in this production line is 63 billion yuan, which is the largest single industrial project in Sichuan Province so far.

The future products of this production line will be mainly used in IT fields such as mid-to-high-end notebook computers and tablets. It will gather new display industry talents, actively drive the development of upstream and downstream industrial chains, and play an engine role.

According to previous reports by IT Home, as the first high-generation AMOLED production line in China and the first batch in the world, BOE's 8.6th-generation AMOLED production line has a total investment of 63 billion yuan, with a designed production capacity of 32,000 glass substrates (size 2290mm×2620mm) per month, mainly producing high-end touch OLED displays for smart terminals such as laptops and tablets. This project will break the foreign monopoly of OLED display manufacturing and is expected to achieve a historic turning point in China's OLED display field from "following" to "running side by side" and then to "leading."

In terms of leading, earlier this month Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple supplier BOE unveiled a future OLED Smartphone display that delivers the highest color expression with low power consumption."

BOE unveiled a new OLED panel prototype at the Innovation Partner Conference (IPC) held in Beijing). The prototype display achieved 95 percent of the standard color gamut BT 2020, which refers to the range of colors displayed by the panel. This is higher than LG Display's white (W)-OLED panel (70 percent) and Samsung Display's quantum dot (QD)-OLED panel (90 percent). The higher the number, the richer colors that can be displayed.

Although the product unveiled this time are not in mass production, analyses show that BOE's OLED panel technology is becoming advanced enough to threaten Korean companies. BOE plans to supply these panels to IT devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and TVs.

With the Government of China supporting BOE, there's no doubt that the company's new OLED plant will lead to gaining more display contracts with Apple.