On November 9, Patently Apple posted a report tiled "Apple Supplier BOE is expanding their OLED Display Capacity for Apple and Chinese Smartphone Vendors." Today, an analytical report published by CEO Choong Hoon Yi of UBI Research claims that BOE will likely overtake LG as Apple's number two OLED display supplier by 2023.

BOE’s total flexible OLED panel production capacity will expand from its current 96,000 substrates per month (Gen 6 substrates) to 144,000 substrates per month by the fourth quarter of next year, the CEO said.

This is level with that of Samsung Display’s current capacity of 140,000 substrates per month. LG Display currently has a capacity of 30,000 substrates per month __ it is aiming to expand this to 45,000 substrates per month for flexible OLED panels and 15,000 substrates per month for rigid OLED panels.

BOE will be able to supply 15 million units of OLED panels for iPhone 12 and 3 million units for iPhone 13 this year, Yi said.

This means it will account for 10% of the OLED panels used by Apple for their iPhones this year, he said.

For 2022, given that Apple is expected to ship 240 million units of OLED iPhones,  Samsung Display will aim for 150 million units, LG Display 70 million units and BOE 50 million units, the UBI Research CEO said.

This means in 2023, BOE can aim to overtake LG Display in shipment, he added. For more on this read the full report by The Elec.

LG has been a solid Apple supplier over the years and LG Innotek has reportedly struck a deal with Apple regarding a next-gen periscope display for a future iPhone. LG and Corning also hold patents for the next-gen 'Liquid Lens" technology that could be another option for Apple.

While there's no doubt that BOE is going to be major force in the OLED display industry over the next few years, Apple favoring BOE over LG Display by 2023 is a bold prediction and only time will tell if it actually pans out.