Seoul, Jun 18 (IANS): Samsung Display Co. maintained its dominant position in the global smartphone display market in the first quarter as more handset makers adopted OLED panels for their premium products, a market researcher has said.

The display making unit of Samsung Electronics shipped $3.4 billion worth of smartphone displays in the January-March period, accounting for 40.2 per cent of the total market share, according to the data by IHS Markit.

The Korean firm's market share shed 6.6 percentage points from a year earlier in the first quarter, but it was able to hold over 40 per cent of the share for eight consecutive months, as per data, Yonhap news agency reported.

Japan Display Inc. was a distant second player with a 12.3 per cent share, and China's BOE came in third with 11.9 per cent. The Chinese company nearly doubled its market share compared with a year ago on the back of increased investment in flexible OLED panels.

Among OLED panel producers, Samsung Display took up a whopping 80 percent, with its active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panels.

Samsung Electronics Co. was the first to adopt the full-screen AMOLED panels for its smartphones in 2010, but the market gathered further growth momentum after its US rival Apple released new models with AMOLED panels in late 2018.

China's Huawei also launched premium smartphones last year with the high-end screen.