Samsung phones could do the unthinkable and ditch Samsung OLED displays for cheaper alternatives

Samsung is synonymous with OLED displays on phones, but the company appears to be switching suppliers for some future models.

According to The Elec, Samsung Electronics has sourced displays for some of its cheaper models from CSOT – a division of TCL – rather than from its own Samsung Display. It's likely that the reason is that CSOT displays can be up to 20% cheaper than those from Samsung itself.

The details outline that Samsung has ordered 15 million displays, expected to be found in devices like the unannounced Galaxy A57 and Galaxy S26 FE.

It's thought that the increasing price of memory has seen Samsung looking to lower the bill of materials and while there's nothing they can do about storage and RAM, switching supplier for the display can reduce that cost.

However, it's also thought that Samsung Electronics didn't want to be solely reliant on one source of components.

While much of the attention of Samsung's launches is focused on the Galaxy S flagship phones, the company sells many more Galaxy A devices. It's thought that of the 240 million phones that Samsung sold in 2025, Galaxy A devices account for more than half of sales.

According to Counterpoint's figures, the Galaxy A16 and A06 outsold the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Switching supplier might not have the impact on customers that is be expected at face value. While Samsung displays are known for their quality, CSOT has a good reputation, so if you're considering buying one of Samsung's more affordable phones in the future, you might not even notice the difference.

Often, manufacturers don't declare where components within phones come from. The exception is often the core hardware where there's a lot of interest – Samsung Exynos, MediaTek or Snapdragon, for example – but for other elements, it's often not stated.

That's changed slightly over the past few years, with some of the more aggressively priced brands often including the supplier on the spec sheet. That's seen some brands stating that it's a Samsung display, Sony cameras and so on.

Often, this is a move to increase the perceived value – the sum of the parts being greater than the whole – while in reality, it's the experience of the whole that defines how good a phone is. It doesn't matter if you have the best display or camera sensors if the software experience is horrible.

Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy A57 on 25 March, which could be the first time we see these new displays in action.