According to ETNews, LGD is increasing the share of 65" OLED TV panels in production. In Q3 2017 LGD produced 65% 55-inch panels and 35% 65-inch panels, but in November 65-inch panels shipments surpassed those of 55-inch panels.
This trend is expected to continue in 2018, and LGD is also ramping up production of 77-inch panels.
Analysts from CLSA returned from a journey to Asia with some interesting notes on the OLED industry. According to CLSA, spending in the OLED industry has peaked and OLED producers are not expecting to place any new equipment orders in the near future. This coincides with IHS estimates of over supply in the flexible OLED market in 2018.
According to CLSA, Samsung has a current capacity in its A3 and A4 (which should be ready by Q2 2018) OLED fabs to produce about 330-385 million OLED displays per year (11 lines, each about 15,000 monthly substrates) which SDC expects to be enough to satisfy Apple's and Samsung Electronics' demand. SDC does not see a strong demand from China's smartphone makers, surprisingly, due to the high cost of OLED displays. Without demand for larger displays (tablets/laptops) or perhaps for foldable devices, SDC's seem to be content with its current OLED capacity.
UBI Research estimates that in 2019 Flexible OLED shipments will reach 480 million units, overtaking rigid OLED shipments (409 million in 2019) for the first time. In a somewhat confusing PR, UBI seem to suggest that flexible OLED shipments will grow at a CAGR of 41% to reach 1.285 billion units (and $59.4 billion in revenues) in 2022.
UBI also provides information on two specific market segments. Full-screen flexible OLED shipments will reach 265 million units in 2018 (a market-share of 82.1% of all flexible OLEDs). Full-screen OLED domination will continue in the future and in 2022 over a billion such displays will ship (market share of 79.5%).
DSCC estimates that 88 Million smartphone OLED displays were shipped in Q3 2017, which represents a 4% drop from Q2 2017 and a 13% drop from Q3 2016 - mostly due to delays in iPhone X shipments. Flexible OLED shipments were up 25% from Q2 2017 (30.4 million units).
Shipments are expected to grow significantly in Q4 2017, though, to reach 151 million units. Flexible OLEDs shipments (78.3 million) will grow 157% from last quarter and 544% from last year, and will surpass rigid OLED shipments (73.3 million) for the first time.
IHS analyst David Hsieh posted a very interesting article that discuss the global OLED industry with a special focus on China. Samsung is expected to retain its lead in this market - and will more than double its capacity between 2017 to 2022.
In five years (2022), Samsung will have a capacity to produce 16.6 million square meters of RGB OLED displays, or 52% of the global capacity. SDC will be followed by LG Display (11%), Tianma (6%), CSoT (5%), Visionox (4%) and EverDisplay (4%).
IHS says that SDC increased its lead in the smartphone display market, reaching a market share of 42.7% in Q3 2017. Samsung is followed by JDI (12.5%), LG Display (10.1%), BOE (8.8%) and Sharp (7.7%). The smartphone display market totaled $11.8 billion in Q3, a new quarterly high.
IHS says that OLED smartphone revenue reached a record high in the quarter - $5.11 billion (up 32.4% from the $3.86 billion in Q2 2017). SDC's market share in the OLED smartphone display market is 98.5% ($5.03 billion). IHS actually expects SDC's market share to increase slightly to 98.8% in Q4 2017.
DSCC released a new market report which tracks the OLED materials market. According to DSCC's estimates, the OLED material revenues will reach $905 million in 2017 and will grow at a 20% CAGR to reach $2.25 billion in 2022. Note that these numbers do not include royalty payments.
DSCC sees the small/medium display materials growing at a 22% (from $586 million in 2017 to $1.56 billion in 2022) - and growing faster than OLED TV materials (CAGR 16%) as ink jet printing, which will begin to be adopted in 2020 will result in more efficient OLED deposition.
UBI Research is tracking the price of premium TV sold on Amazon.com in the US. As competition intensifies, the price gap between OLED and LCD TVs keeps getting lower - to the point where is not much difference between a high end Samsung QLED TV and LG's OLEDC7 OLED TVs.
In December 2016, the price gap between a 65" LG OLED TV to a 65" Samsung SUHD TV was about $1,000. The price gap as of today is only about $300. The price gap for a 55" TV is even lower (around $200).
IHS says that demand for flexible AMOLED displays is growing at a slower pace than expected - and also at a slower rate than its supply, and as a result the demand in 2018 will be 44% lower than the supply.
IHS says that flexible OLED capacity will grow 100% in 2018 (to reach 4.4 million square meters), but demand will only grow 70% (to 2.4 million square meters). IHS says that the high price of flexible OLEDs caused smartphone makers to opt for either rigid (glass-based) OLEDs or LCDs in their 2018 models. IHS estimates that the price gap between a flexible OLED and a rigid OLED on the same 6-Gen line is about 50%.
Samsung recently announced its financial results for Q3 2017, and Specifically regarding its OLED business, SDC increased its sales of flexible OLEDs, but prices of rigid OLED panels declined. DSCC estimates that the utilization at Samsung's OLED fab fell from mid-80% to mid-70% mostly due to delays in shipments to Apple.
The low utilization rate resulted in a decline in OLED operating income, which fell 37% from Q2 2017. Revenues actually increased (as you can see in the chart above), but pricing pressure on rigid OLED panels meant that SDC's OLED operating margins fell from 22.5% in Q2 2017 to 12.4% in Q3 2017. DSCC estimates however that OLED profitability will rebound quickly as Apple are likely to increase iPhone X shipments and as utilization and yield improve. The higher demand for higher-cost flexible OLEDs are likely to enable SDC to return its operating margin to over 20%.
