Market updates - Page 26

Samsung Display said it is sending a hundred employees to India, to help install equipment at its new OLED module factory in Noida city Uttar Pradesh state. Samsung aims to start producing OLED modules at the new fab in the first half of 2021.

Samsung hopes that this Indian plant will help it react faster to local demand in India. In 2020 Samsung once again is the top smartphone vendor in India (after retaking Xiaomi).

DSCC estimates that it has increased its OLED equipment spending estimate for 2020-2023 by 11% compared to its previous outlook. DSCC now sees total OLED equipment spending reaching $45 billion. The increase was due to increased demand for LGD's mobile OLEDs and plans to increase capacity and CSoT's new $6.8 billion IJP OLED fab plans.

Interestingly DSCC also increased its LCD equipment spending estimate by 37% following three recently announced smaller expansion plans. In total for both LCDs and OLEDs, display equipment spending for 2020-2023 was upgraded by 9% vs. DSCC's last estimate to $38B.

DSCC says that the utilization rates at flexible OLED production lines have risen sharply in Q3 2020 - from around 40% to around 65% - mostly due to production for Apple's iPhones. A rise in Q3 utilization has also happened in past years, for the same reason.

It is also interesting to note that OLED TV utilization rates are decreasing - part of the reason is that LG's OLED fabs had limited capacity until now and operated at almost 100% rates, but as capacity increases LG is no longer capacity constrained.

Market research company DSCC updates its WOLED TV production cost estimates and forecasts. DSCC says that LG is improving the production at its 8.5-Gen production line in Guangzhou and by next year the cost of production in China will be lower than comparable production in Korea - by about 15%. One meaningful technology adopted in China is MMG which enables around 20% cost reduction.

DSCC also estimates that while MiniLED TVs are cheaper to produce compared to OLEDs, the gap is less than 10%, which means that retail prices of MiniLEDs will be pretty much the same as the retail prices of OLED TVs.

UBI Research estimates that OLED shipments in the first half of 2020 were 231 million units ($13.2 billion), pretty much the same as in the first half of 2019 (230 million, $13.8 billion). UBI estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic decreased demand for OLED displays.

Looking at market segmentation, OLED shipments for smartphones decreased from 200.4 million units to 189.8 million units. Foldable phones increased from 70,000 units to 1.7 million units, and smartwatch display shipments increased sharply from 22 million units in the first half of 2019 to 33.5 million in the first half of 2020.

According to Omdia, LG Display have produced over 10 million OLED TVs since 2013. Omdia says that in Q4 2020 1.2 million OLED TVs will ship globally - up 30% from Q4 2019.

Omdia sees 3.3 million OLED TVs shipped in 2020. This is a 10% increase from 2019, but remember that in 2019 Omdia expected 5.5 million units to ship in 2020 - this estimate was later decreased several times. In 2024, Omdia expects over 9 million OLED TVs to ship.

Today we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the flexible, VR/AR, microdisplays, automotive and graphene OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to October 2020.

The Flexible and Foldable OLED Market Report:

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• What kind of flexible displays are currently on the market
• All about the foldable OLED market and industry
• What the future holds for flexible OLEDs
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The report package provides a good introduction to the flexible and foldable OLED market - present and future. It details both flexible displays and lighting technologies. Read more here!

DSCC says that the first half of 2020 has seen lower production at OLED fabs, due to normal season-related weakness in combination with the COVID-10 pandemic. Utilization rates and production capacity, however, rebounded in Q3 and will continue to be higher in Q4 of 2020.

The main reason for the bounce of flexible OLED production in Q3 was due to new products by Apple, Samsung and other device makers. In fact flexible OLED production in 2020 was higher in all months of 2020, including the weak quarters. However rigid OLEDs have seen a large drop in 2020 which has risen slightly in Q3 and will continue to rise - but remain smaller than 2019.

Yole Développement (Yole) says that the microdisplay market is set for impressive growth in the next few years, with the CAGR from 2020 to 2025 at 100%. Microdisplay module revenues will reach $4.2 billion in 2025, $1.8 billion of which will be for AR headsets.

This optimistic forecast has a warning though - it all depends whether next-generation display technologies will deliver on their promises - and whether actual use-cases will be found and commercialized.

DSCC says that the foldable/rollable smartphone market will be one of the fastest growing consumer electronics market - and sales of such smartphones will grow to $105 billion by 2025, in a CAGR of 80%.

The display area used in such devices will grow a 93% CAGR, to reach 1.2 million square meters by 2025. In terms of units, 74.4 million rollable/foldable smartphones will ship in 2025.