DigiTimes:

Apple has purchased evaporators from Korea-based Sunic System to build a 2.5G OLED panel line to develop related technology and products in Taiwan, according to a Korea-based ET News report.

“Apple is eagerly developing its own OLED technology in order to reduce its reliance on Samsung Electronics for the supply of OLED panels, while enabling it for product differentiation”, said the report.

Apple’s move will break the dominant position held by Japan-based Canon Kokki in the evaporator market, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report. Canon Tokki is currently the primary supplier of evaporators and ships the bulk of its output to Samsung.

This is a big move by Apple. Not only does this help reduce their reliance on an arch-competitor, it allows them to more finely control their supply chain. At the rarified levels at which the iPhone sells, it can be difficult to source high quantities of the more state-of-the-art parts.

Bringing manufacturing in house is a bet that the up front cost will be more than amortized by the number of iPhones sold. Given Tim Cook’s supply chain expertise, my bet is that this is no gamble on Apple’s part.

UPDATE: As several readers have pointed out, it’s more likely that Apple will provide this equipment to a selected partner, let them run the factory. Makes sense.