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By Baek Byung-yeul
Samsung Electronics is expanding its supply of smartphone components such as camera image sensors and display panels to Chinese phone makers to take advantage of their soaring market dominance in the highly competitive smartphone market there, industry analysts said Wednesday.
Though Samsung is still the largest seller of smartphones in the world, it has been struggling with sluggish market conditions and the rise of Chinese phone makers.
Against such a backdrop, industry analysts added Samsung's increased cooperation with Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo will sustain the company's growth momentum.
Samsung recently announced Xiaomi, the world's No.4 smartphone maker, will use Samsung's ISOCELL Bright GW1 image sensor for its new Redmi smartphone. The GW1 sensor is the industry's first 64-megapixel image sensor for mobile devices.
The Korean company also said it developed the world's first 108-megapixel image sensor for mobile devices and Xiaomi will use the ultra-high resolution image sensor for its forthcoming smartphones. Oppo, the No. 5 phone maker, also decided to use Samsung image sensors.
An image sensor is an electronic device that converts the light received by the camera into a digital image. Sony is currently dominating the market with about a 50 percent market share, while second placed Samsung has about 20 percent. Given the global complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor market is expected to grow to $19 billion by 2022, according to data from IC Insights, Samsung is increasing its cooperation with Chinese makers to boost its market share.
Besides image sensors, Samsung Display will also supply its OLED display panels to Chinese makers including Huawei, the world's No.2 smartphone maker following Samsung.
According to industry officials, Samsung Display will supply its OLED panels for Huawei's upcoming Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro smartphones.
Huawei has used Samsung Display panels for its P20 and P30 smartphones but this is the first time the company has used Samsung panels for its flagship Mate smartphones.
A Samsung Display official refused to confirm the supply of OLED displays for Huawei's upcoming premium smartphones but added the company has "closely" cooperated with Chinese phone makers.
"Under company policy, we cannot confirm which companies we supply to. But we have been supplying our OLED display panels to Chinese makers such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi for many years," the official said. "Among the major makers in the mainland, we have especially maintained close relationships with Oppo and Vivo."
Huawei's use of Samsung Display panels for its high-end product is seen as rare given the Chinese maker had procured OLED panels from Chinese display maker BOE.
Kim Dong-won, an analyst at KB Securities, analyzed Huawei decided to adopt Samsung's OLED panels away from BOE as the firm had said Huawei decided to adopt the Samsung Display panels as it "experienced quality issues."
"Huawei is likely to use Samsung Display's OLED panels for its new flagship smartphones Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro. Huawei is estimated to choose Samsung Display as its main OLED panel supplier after experiencing a product quality issue," the analyst said.
James Kang, home and tech analyst at Euromonitor International, said Samsung is expanding its supply of components to Chinese makers, seeking a way to improve its business performance in its sluggish smartphone business.
"According to our data, Huawei is expected to have about 30 percent share of smartphone market in China in 2019. Supplying smartphone components to Huawei will give Samsung new growth momentum," the analyst said.
