Applied Materials reported its financial results for Q2 2016, with an all-time highs in new orders and backlog. Applied says that the company is in early stages of large, multi-year industry inflections which is driving its business growth.
One of the inflections is in the display industry. In early 2016 Applied said it is seeing strategic investment from OLED display customers, and this trends now continues. Applied says it has received large OLED orders - but the market is still in the "initial phase" of OLED investments and more growth is expected ahead.
Applied says that in last year, about 70% of display orders were for LCD equipment, and the rest for OLEDs. But this year the situation is reversed - over 65% of orders are for OLED display equipment.
In 2015, the company's OLED system bookings reached $150 million, and Applied did not reveal any numbers yet for 2016. Applied traditionally offered backplane (LTPS and IGZO) deposition systems, and the company recently entered the OLED encapsulation market as well - which is seen as a growth driver for Applied.
In the last few months we hear very positive reports from OLED equipment makers as display makers rush to construct new OLED fabs and expand production, mostly for flexible displays, it seems. Coherent has reported several good quarters, mostly for ELA systems from flexible OLED makers, Tokki is expanding its OLED deposition equipment production and Dai Nippon Printing tripled its evaporation mask production.
IEarlier this year Colnatec announced large orders for its temperature control systems for a new large OLED deposition system destined for China and Orbotech reported an increase in OLED equipment sales.
