Samsung's decision to end production of LCD screens means that companies like Apple will likely move exclusively to OLEDs and other new types of displays.

According to a Reuters report (via TechRadar and AppleInsider), Samsung Display, part of the Korean company responsible for manufacturing screens for smartphones and many other devices, will end production of LCD displays in Korea and China by the end of the year The company will end production of LCD displays in South Korea and China by the end of this year. The company has already halted operations in October due to a surplus of displays as a result of declining demand for TVs and cell phones.

Samsung Display supplies screens to many different smartphone manufacturers, including Apple's iPhone and OnePlus devices like the OnePlus 7T. They enable many of the exciting display features we love, such as high refresh rates, curved edges, and transparent areas for scanning fingerprint sensors in the screen.

Samsung and OnePlus have been on the OLED bandwagon for a while, but we've heard rumors that Apple will move to a full OLED lineup with the iPhone 12 this year. The company has left at least one inexpensive LCD option on the table for the past few years, including the iPhone 11 and iPhone XR.

LCD (liquid crystal display) panels have become considerably cheaper in recent years due to the proliferation of brighter and crisper OLED displays. However, many budget smartphones also use OLED screens.

With this move by Samsung Display, more phones could benefit from the superior image quality that OLED panels can offer. Cell phones with OLED screens may also benefit from better battery life because they can display black by turning off pixels rather than filtering out the backlight as LCD displays do.

Over the next five years, Samsung plans to make a major investment in one of its LCD factories in Korea and convert its production line to produce quantum dot displays, also known as QLEDs. Quantum dot displays (found in many Samsung TVs) are ideal for future foldable devices from Samsung, Apple, and many other manufacturers because they not only produce superior quality images, but are more flexible than OLED panels.