Japan Display Chief Executive Mitsuru Homma on Friday said that his company will start mass production of OLEDs for mobile devices in 2018, amid speculation Apple may adopt such screens for its iPhones soon. Japan Display already supplies LCD smartphone screens to Apple, but faces competition from LG Display Co Ltd.

"We will take advantage of our advanced thin-film transistor technology in developing OLED screens," Akio Takimoto, chief of Japan Display's research center, told reporters on Friday.

Apple may adopt OLED technology for its iPhone as early as in 2018, with LG Display and the panel-making unit of Samsung Electronics likely to be considered as supplier candidates.