Market updates - Page 28

UBI Research estimates that foldable smartphone display makers will continue to rely on both Ultra-Thin-Glass (UTG) and Colorless Polyimide (CPI) films for at least the next five years.

UBI sees demand for CPI films will reach 4.3 million units in 2020 while demand for UTG will reach 3.5 million units. Demand for both products will grow and by 2024 it will reach 37.1 million units for CPI and 30.5 million for UTG.

DSCC updated its capacity and demand outlook for the OLED industry. DSCC says that the oversupply situation for smartphone OLEDs will continue to effect the industry for years ahead.

According to DSCC the reason for the oversupply is Samsung's near-monopoly on flexible OLED phone panels - and the fact that the company keeps prices high and prefers high profit margins even though it leads to low utilization rates. DSCC sees China's capacity (which includes LG's Gunagzhou fab) share to rise from 5% in 2017 to 30% in 2020 and finally to 49% in 2025.

DSCC posted an update to their OLED (and LCD) fab capacity and utilization rate estimations. DSCC thought that Samsung's rigid OLED lines will remain in high utilization (almost 90%) in 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic lowered demand for OLEDs, and Q2 saw a sharp reduction in production of both flexible and rigid OLEDs. Looking into the rest of 2020, DSCC expects demand for OLED to rise.

DSCC also sees flexible OLED capacity almost overtaking LTPS LCD capacity by the end of 2020. Both flexible and rigid OLED capacity is increasing, while LCD production is reduced (in 2019 JDI shutdown its Hakusan LCD plant which reduced LTPS LCD capacity by 7%).

CLSA says that Samsung Display saw a decline in demand for OLED panels in Q1 2020, and its flexible OLED fab utilization rate dropped to 40%.

In April demand from Chinese smartphone maker recovered and CLSA expects meaningful growth in OLED smartphone demand with Samsung's utilization rates exceeding 90% in Q3.

DSCC says that OLED revenues in Q1 2020 were $6.7 billion (up 24% from Q1 2019, but down 18% from Q4 2019). Both Samsung and BOE gained market share in the quarter, as LGD had a weak quarter.

DSCC sees the entire OLED market reaching $33 billion in 2020 (up 18% from 2019). Smartphone OLED sales will reach $26.6 billion, mostly led by a growth in flexible OLED sales. The OLED TV market will grow 19% to 4 million units in 2020. DSCC sees the laptop OLED market increasing significantly in 2020.

DSCC posted an interesting blog post, in which they detail what they believe to be Apple's iPhone 12 smartphone family specifications.

So we start with the iPhone 12, which will use a 5.42" 2348x1048 (476 PPI) flexible AMOLED display, produced by Samsung Display. DSCC believes the iPhone 12 will use a Y-OCTA integrated touch. DSCC believes that while BOE did not manage to get its panel to the iPhone 12, it may become a supplier in 2021 to the iPhone 12s - if all goes well with the iPhone 12 Max (see below).

UBI Research lowered its forecast for the OLED industry in 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic. UBI decreased its total market revenue forecast by 4.8% to $36.7 billion.

UBI now estimates that 612 million OLED panels will ship in 2020, down from its previous estimate of 660 million. The OLED TV market forecast was reduced dramatically from 4.9 million panels to 3.6 million.

IHS Markit says that the rollable OLED market is finally starting to emerge, and will grow quickly but unit shipments will remain slow in the foreseeable future. IHS sees 100,000 rollable OLED displays shipped in 2022, growing to 1.3 million by 2026. The CAGR from 2019 to 2026 will be 167%.

Rollable OLEDs will remain a niche- the share of rollable OLEDs from all flexible OLEDs will be 0.2% in 2026. Foldable OLEDs will be a much larger market - reaching 71.3 million units in 2025.

DSCC updated its OLED material market estimates, saying that AMOLED stack material sales will grow from $951 million in 2019 to $2.69 billion in 2024 - a CAGR of 23%. These new estimates take into account DSCC's reduced input area forecast due to the slowdown in demand cased by the Covid-19 pandemic.

DSCC says that incremental improvements in material utilization and price reductions, material costs per square meters will decline in the future. The unyielded cost of producing a square meter of a WOLED TV panel will decline from $95.21 in 2019 to $56.11 in 2024.

This article is an extract from The MicroLED Handbook, 2020 edition, and gives a short introduction to the current market status of MicroLED Microdisplays. The handbook was published in January 2020 - there has been some updates since then, for example Plessey's recent soft-acquisition by Facebook and MICLEDI's technology was revealed.

There are several companies that develop microLED microdisplays, and these are gearing up to begin mass production of displays soon. It is likely that microdisplays will be the first type of commercial displays enabled by microLED technology.