Samsung Electronics seems to add OLED displays to the list of components it supplies to smartphone "rival" Apple, The South Koran company plans to increase production of next-generation smartphone display panels by more than 50% this year, accoridng to Nikkei.

The company will spend around 8 trillion won ($6.82 billion) in 2016 to boost capacity by the equivalent of well over 200 million for smartphone panels using organic light-emitting diodes at a subsidiary's plant.

Samsung is dominating the OLED panel market, and Apple apparently approached the company to supply such displays for an upcoming version of its iPhone. Apple previously told parts suppliers that an OLED smartphone was in the works for 2018, but a partial 2017 release now is planned.

Apple also sources some of its memory chips and other components from Samsung. The South Korean company aims to expand its components business, which provides earnings on par with those from smartphones, as well as spur growth in the OLED market.

Samsung already uses OLED panels in the majority of its smartphones. The cost of making the panels is now thought to be on par with that for LCDs.

LG Display also plans to invest more than 10 trillion won into expanding production of OLED television and other panels over the next several years.

In addition, Japan Display will spend 50 billion yen ($479 million) to build a new OLED production line in spring 2017, with mass production to start in 2018 or later.