Last month we heard that Samsung was in talks with China’s BOE for the supply of OLED panels for the upcoming Galaxy S27, and BOE’s displays were allegedly $5 cheaper than what Samsung Display could supply. So it seemed pretty inevitable that BOE would get the deal and the vanilla S27 would ship with the Chinese panels.
Well, not so fast. A plot twist has emerged today. Apparently Samsung has decided not to go with the BOE displays after all, and so Samsung Display was chosen to supply the OLED panels for the Galaxy S27.
While a clear reason for this decision is not known, there’s some obvious speculation going on in Korea right now, saying that Samsung Display wasn’t happy at all with the possible move from Samsung Electronics. The latter already buys BOE panels for cheaper models, but the flagships have so far been exclusively supplied with screens by Samsung Display. Even some Samsung Electronics higher-ups were reportedly against the idea of the switch.
BOE entering the supply of Samsung’s flagship family would have had a very clear symbolic significance, and it wouldn’t have been a great look for Samsung Display.
This might not be great news for those who are looking to buy a Galaxy S27 when it comes out next year, as sticking with the more expensive Samsung Display panels could mean that Samsung isn’t able to offset some of the higher memory and storage costs. Thus, a price hike versus the S26 could be inevitable.
Samsung Galaxy S26 5G
Source (in Korean)