Apple and its suppliers plan on shipping over 9 million OLED iPad Pro units in 2024

Apple expects to ship more than 9 million M4-powered iPad Pro (2024) tablets this year according to DigiTimes Asia. Both the 11-inch and 13-inch variants of the tablet use OLED displays making them the first iPads to do so. While problems manufacturing the Tandem OLED panels delayed the release of Apple's new top-of-the-line tablet series, both Apple and the South Korean display suppliers, LG Display, and Samsung Display, are moving full steam ahead with their original shipping plans.

Market research firm Omida believes that global shipments of tablets using OLED displays will hit 12.1 million units this year. 8.12 million of these units will be tablets using "Hybrid OLED "displays which is just another name for the two-stack OLED used on the iPad Pro. Using the two OLED  layers allows the display to be brighter, more durable, and more expensive. Based on Omida's forecast, and considering that the iPad Pro (2024) models are the first tablets to use hybrid displays, 61.7% of OLED tablets shipped this year should consist of the 11-inch or 13-inch iPad Pro (2024).

With most research firms expecting Apple to ship 4.5 million to 5 million iPad Pro (2024) units in 2024, Apple, LG Display and Samsung Display are not making any changes to their shipping targets. LG Display expects to ship 5 million OLED panels while Samsung Display is aiming to deliver over 4 million units. The latter is increasing the number of lines producing the iPad Pro's OLED panels from one to two at the A3 line where OLED displays are produced for the iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy handsets. However, that line typically produces single-stack OLED panels which means that some adjustments will be necessary.

LG Display built the line that produces its hybrid OLED panels specifically to build two-stack OLED displays. The company has spent a total of  KRW3.4 trillion (approximately $2.5 billion) on this production line. LG Display is producing the two-stack OLED panels for both the 11-inch and 13-inch versions of the iPad Pro (2024) while Samsung Display supplies the Hybrid OLED panels for the 11-inch model only.