Market updates - Page 44

Earlier this month DSCC announced that it sees low AMOLED fab utilization at SDC, following lower than expected Apple orders. The weaker-than-expected 2018 will move OLED makers to delay and cancel new OLED fab expansion plans.

DSCC now released its updated forecast numbers. The company lowered its outlook for 2018 by 22% and expects total OLED revenues to be $30.3 billion (up 30% from 2017). Looking further ahead to 2022, DSCC sees the market growing at a CAGR of 23% (down from its earlier estimates of 27%). In 2022 the total OLED market will reach $64.3 billion in revenues (down from its earlier estimates of $79.6 billion).

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Yesterday reports from Korea suggested that pre-orders for the Galaxy S9 in Korea are 30% lower compared to the pre-orders of the Galaxy S8 in 2017. The Korea Herald, however, today says that Samsung believes it will sell more Galaxy S9 phones than it did with the GS8.

The Korea Herald says that Samsung told its suppliers that its target is to sell 43 million GS9 (and GS9 plus) phones in 2018. In 2017, Samsung shipped 41 million GS8 and GS8 plus phones. In 2016, Samsung shipped 48 million GS7 phones, so even if it reaches its target of 43 million GS9 phones, it will still lag behind The GS7.

IHS estimates that Korean OLED makers (Samsung and LGD) will halt their OLED capacity expansion in 2018, but will resume adding capacity in 2019. Meanwhile China-based makers will continue their fast expansion plans in 2018-2020, and total AMOLED production capacity in China will grow from 228,000 sqm in 2016 to 8.3 million sqm in 2020, that's a CAGR of 145%!.

Interestingly IHS sees no real OLED production in Japan at least until 2020.

Market analysts from DSCC say that the low utilization rates at Samsung Display has caused the company to delay its capacity expansion plans. SDC's decision to delay its A5 fab has already been discussed, but DSCC now says that Samsung is also significantly delaying the ramp-up at its new A4 line. DSCC estimates that SDC will delay this new line by at least a year.

LG Display has also reportedly cancelled the first phase of their next flexible OLED line, the P7 (which can be a conversion of LGD's old P7 LCD line). DSCC sees LGD ordering equipment for a new flexible OLED line only at the beginning of 2019.

IHS Markit says that flexible AMOLED shipments more than tripled in 2017, and revenues reached $12 billion (up from $3.5 billion in 2016). Rigid OLED revenues decreased by 14%. In 2018 flexible OLED revenues will reach around $23 billion, and rigid OLEDs will also increase slightly to about $11 billion.

In 2016 most flexible OLED were used in a curved form factor (edge-type phones), but in 2017 about half of flexible OLED displays were used in a flat form factor (such as in the iPhone X).

Display analyst firm DSCC posted an interested article stating that the latest range of bezel-less LCDs are very similar to the high-end flexible OLEDs in form (not in contrast or image quality), to the point that mid-smartphone makers find it hard to justify the extra cost of a flexible OLEDs. The following table graphs shows the current price gap between flexible OLEDs and LCDs:
While a flexible OLED does enable a higher display-to-body ratio (82.9% on the iPhone X, for example), a high end LCD comes pretty close - the Oppo F5 reaches 78.1%.

Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC) says that OLED material revenues grew 43% to reach $869 million in 2017. DSCC expects the OLED material market to grow at a 24% CAGR until 2022, when the market will reach $2.56 billion.

The small/medium display market accounts to about 59% of the total OLED material market, and this will continue until 2022. For the TV market, DSCC expects ink-jet printing to enable producers to make lower the material costs of OLED TV production, and OLED TV materials will grow at a rate of 23%, from $344 in 2017 to $963 million in 2022.

UBI Research estimates that AMOLED shipments reached 440 million units in 2017 (up 13.6% from 2016), with revenues reaching $27.1 billion (up 62.3% from 2016). Only yesterday did DSCC release its own estimates of $23.2 billion in revenues for the AMOLED market in 2017.

The AMOLED market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.5% to reach almost a billion units in 2022. Revenues will grow faster at 22% and reach $80.5 billion in 2022.

DSCC says that OLED revenues reached $8.8 billion in Q4 2017, growing 62% from the previous quarter and 120% from Q4 2016. The main drivers of this growth are shipments for the iPhone X and OLED TV panel growth in the holiday season. In 2017, OLED revenues reached a record of $23.2 billion, a growth of 57% from 2016 ($14.7 billion).

DSCC says that smartphone revenues accounted for 87.4% of the total AMOLED market, and OLED TV shipments had a 5.6% share ($1.3 billion in revenues). The 3rd largest application is smart watch panels (3.2%).