DSCC says that in January 2019 flexible OLED utilization rates dropped to 39% - due to seasonal weakness and Apple's slow iPhone sales. CLSA says that February will another bad month and utilization rates will even drop slightly to 37%. In March things will improve to almost 50% - following the launch of Samsung's Galaxy S10.
Looking at the entire quarter, DSCC sees utilization rates dropping from 68% in Q4 2018 to 41% in Q1 2019. Glass input for all flexible OLED fabs will be down 3% from last year. Rigid OLED utilization rates have been up in 2019 - from 44% in December 2018 to 49% in January 2019, and DSCC sees it continuing to climb in Q1 2019, as a result of increased adoption of rigid OLED by Chinese smartphone makers.
OLED TV fab utilization continues to strong - even though it decreased from full utilization in December 2018 to 92% in January - and will remain so in the quarter as demand for OLED TVs is somewhat slower. Looking at the entire AMOLED market, DSCC say that glass input was down 7% in Q4 2018 compared to Q4 2017. Glass input in Q1 2019 will be up 12% compared to 2018.
