Right, so the foldable iPhone has lived in rumour land for years, but this might be the most concrete sign yet that it is actually, properly happening. Apple has reportedly given Samsung Display the green light to start mass-producing the screens. That is the bit that matters, because you do not approve panel production for a phone you are not about to build.
The report comes from Korean outlet TheElec, which says Samsung Display has the official thumbs up to begin module production of the OLED panels for Apple’s first ever foldable iPhone.
Production has already kicked off
According to industry sources cited in the report, Samsung Display has fired up part of its back-end production lines over in Vietnam to handle an initial order of around three million panels, with delivery expected this year.
Three million might sound like a lot, but in iPhone terms it is actually pretty modest, which tracks for a brand new, premium, first generation product. Apple is clearly testing the waters here rather than going all in on day one.
Why the approval is a big deal
This is not just a rubber stamp. To get module production approval, a supplier has to prove two things: that the final assembly quality is up to scratch, and that they can churn these out at scale without the wheels falling off.
Apple’s bar is reportedly a yield rate of at least 70%, meaning at least 70 out of every 100 panels coming off the line need to be good enough to ship. Samsung Display apparently cruised past that, hitting final yields above 80%. For a folding display, which is notoriously fiddly to manufacture, that is genuinely impressive.
Samsung Display is also believed to be the exclusive supplier under a three-year deal, so Apple will not be sourcing these foldable panels from anyone else for a good while. If you are Samsung, that is a very nice contract to be sitting on.
A quick peek under the bonnet
The back-end work happening in Vietnam covers the unglamorous but essential stuff: adding the driver circuits, the flexible printed circuit boards, the protective layers, then final inspection before everything ships out. That facility has around 80 production lines, with roughly 50 currently active, so there is plenty of headroom to scale up if Apple decides to push volumes higher down the line.
On the tech side, the panels are expected to use something called Color Filter on Encapsulation, or CoE. In plain English, it ditches the polariser layer and builds the colour filter directly onto the encapsulation, which helps keep the display thinner and more efficient. That is exactly the kind of thing you want in a phone that has to fold in half.
They will also reportedly use Samsung Display’s newest M16 OLED material set, which is said to bring better brightness, nicer colours, longer lifespan, and improved power efficiency over the previous generation. All the boxes you would want ticked, basically.
What we think the foldable iPhone actually looks like
Pulling together the rumours so far, here is the shape of it:
- A 7.8-inch inner display when you unfold it
- A 5.5-inch cover display for when it is shut
- Touch ID instead of Face ID, presumably tucked into the power button
- Apple’s A20 chip
- The in-house C2 modem
- A starting price expected to be around $2,000
That last number is the one that will make people wince, but for a first generation folding iPhone packed with new tech, it is roughly where everyone expected it to land.
Nothing here is locked in until Apple says so, and plans can always shift. But when a supplier starts physically producing panels and clearing Apple’s quality bar, that is about as close to confirmation as it gets without an official keynote. The foldable iPhone is coming, and it is starting to feel like a when, not an if. For the full picture, our guide to everything we know about the iPhone Fold breaks down the specs, design, pricing and release date in detail.
