HTC who are in a brutal Android phone war with Samsung and their new Galaxy S in Australia, will have to switch display screens from their current AMOLED display which is found in the HTC Desire to LCD due to supply problems created by their arch enemy Samsung.Ironically the problem has been caused due to a supply crisis at Samsung, who manufacture displays screens for several competitors including HTC. Some analysts claim that the supply to HTC is deliberate and is being used by Samsung to gain an advantage.
According to Samsung sources the Korean Company is preserving their supply of AMOLED display screens for the Galaxy S. This has left HTC with no choice but to use LCDs for the Desire, Droid and Incredible, three of its most important phones.
All of the phones will instead use Sony’s high-grade Super TFT LCD to dampen any perceived loss in quality.
The switch may be crucial not just to HTC but to Android as a whole. As the most important Android phone producer in the world, HTC may have stalled sales in the US and Europe by choosing AMOLED and constricting supply.
US Carrier Verizon has claimed it could sell twice as many HTC phones if it had ready supply, but instead it has had to tell customers that any new orders won’t ship for a month.
According to Electronista, the decision explains Apple’s choice to go with an IPS-based LCD for the iPhone 4 instead of the AMOLED that some had thought it needed to use.
While the Retina Display may have spurred on shortages of its own, Apple is using the much larger manufacturing resources for LCD and won’t be as prone to losing supply as it would with AMOLED. Technical advantages also play a part, as AMOLED has better color reproduction and battery life but is very hard to see outdoors and is usually expensive.
Electronista said that production of AMOLEDs may not improve by a significant amount until July 2011, when Samsung’s 5.5-generation plant goes online and it can make 10 times as many screens as it can today. Samsung has a monopoly on AMOLED with 98 percent of production and thus doesn’t have a viable alternative if it runs out of displays for anyone else.
