Vision Pro display delays may get solved by China suppliers

The Vision Pro's OLED displays are expensive and difficult to manufacture

The complexity of the displays in Apple Vision Pro and the difficulty of manufacturing them in sufficient qualities was said to mean Apple slashed its orders for 2024. The only previously known manufacturer, Sony, also reportedly refused to increase its production capacity for the screens.

According to The Information, however, Apple is now testing Vision Pro displays produced by two more companies. One of them, SeeYa Technology, appears be a new supplier.

The other, BOE, has a long history of working with Apple on displays for the iPhone. It's not been the happiest history, but the company has seen increased orders from Apple during 2023.

Reportedly, the new suppliers of the displays may not mean that Apple's Vision Pro orders increase at first. Two unspecified sources told The Information that BOE and SeeYa were being considered for future models of the Vision Pro.

One source told The Information that Apple is evaluating the two companies for providing displays for both later models of Vision Pro, and its lower-cost headset known internally as N109.

The current model uses micro OLED technology which is difficult to produce in volume. However, China's government has directly supported both BOE and SeeYa in their investment into micro OLED factories, with BOE reportedly receiving $750 million.

For its part, SeeYa Technology was founded in 2016 to make micro OLED screens. At that point, it was aiming to produce 20 million such displays annually by 2020, and was investing $275 million to do so.

It's not clear how much of that investment came from the Chinese government, nor whether SeeYa Technology has achieved that ambition.

To be considered for providing displays, BOE and SeeYa will be undergoing stringent quality-control tests by Apple. It's not the first such testing BOE has gone through, though previously that company was later stopped from producing iPhone screens after making an authorized design change.