- We believe Apple has shifted display production and that Sharp has now become a large panel supplier, based on our checks. We believe that the Gen 6 Kameyama facility has been exclusively taken over for Apple purposes with Apple purchasing $500M to $1B of equipment for the manufacturing of iPad 3 and iPhone 5 LTE displays.
- We believe production of iPad 3 displays began two weeks ago and is the cause of much of the noise in the supply chain.
- We believe that Apple and Sharp together have a modified IGZO (indium, gallium, zinc) technology to achieve 330 dpi, which is sufficient for an HD display while not using IPS nor having to include dual-bar LED backlighting. In our view, this should lead to several design advantages, namely the device can be thinner, battery life should be longer, and the overall experience for users should be meaningfully improved.
- We believe that Apple may use this facility for the vast majority of the iPad 3 displays. The price at which Apple will be able to procure these panels will be lower than expected as the capital commitment by Apple likely necessitates below market pricing in our view.
- For the iPhone 5 LTE we also believe this new facility will be used to supply displays. The IGZO technology is perfect in that it offers near-OLED power consumption while having a lower cost and thinness that is only 25% greater than OLED, based on our checks. [OLED =Organic light-emitting diode]
- Even after the iPad 3 launch, we believe Apple will continue to produce the iPad 2 and will lower the price by $100 to $200.
- Going forward we believe that Apple and Sharp will jointly develop OLED panels for use in iPhone and iPad within the next 1 to 2 years. This contrasts with conventional wisdom that states Samsung will have a lock on OLED for that timeframe. The equalizer is a new printing technology based on a combination of daisy wheel and inkjet technology that "prints" the OLED onto a film that is then deposited onto glass. The yield improvements have been enormous and have enabled some trial runs to produce commercial yields. We expect Sharp/Apple to have a line testing this by the middle of 2012 with 2013 output possible.
- Based on our checks we believe OLED is only slated for small and mid-sized panels (i.e., iPad, iPhone). iTV is unlikely to receive OLED treatment until 2015.
For the full article go to: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/24/sharp-and-apple-what-the-jefferies-report-really-says/?iid=SF_F_LN
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