Market updates - Page 48

IHS estimates that sales of mobile flexible AMOLED displays reached about $2 billion in Q2 2017 - more than double compared to Q2 2016 ($886 million).

Samsung still commands this market - IHS says that SDC had a market share of 98.3% in the second quarter. The second flexible OLED market is LG Display which is reportedly still struggling with yield and quality issues at its new E5 flexible OLED line and so has a low capacity. LGD will hopefully soon increase its capacity dramatically. Chinese OLED makers are now initiating flexible OLED production as well.

UBI Research says that LG Display will start mass producing OLED lighting panels at its 5-Gen fab by the end of September 2017, which will the growth period of the OLED lighting market.

According to UBI, the market will reach panel sales of $1.9 billion by 2021, and continue its fast growth to reach $5.8 billion by 2025. That's a CAGR of 85% from 2017 to 2025!

LG Display teamed up with Cultivate Labs to launch a 6-month forecasting tournament about the display industry. The two companies wants to hear from a diverse group of thought-leading engineers, researchers, gamers, graphic artists, consultants, and high-end display experts to participate in the "LG Display Futurecasting" tournament.

The tournament will begin in mid-October, and LGD will award over $10,00 in prize money for forecast accuracy, participation, and qualitative input.

KGI Securities' analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimates that SDC charges Apple $120 to $130 for each flexible OLED display to be used in the upcoming iPhone OLED edition. Ming-Chi says that the 5.5" LCD used in the iPhone 7+ costs $45-$55.

SDC is the exclusive supplier of OLEDs to Apple (mostly because no other company can produce such high quality displays and at such high volumes) and so can enjoy a high premium on its flexible OLEDs. Other estimates we hear, though, say that the price premium of SDC's flexible OLEDs is only about $50 over a competing LCD. It is a bit difficult to compare these two kinds of displays, though, as flexible OLEDs offer functionality that LCD cannot compete with.

According to IHS, the OLED encapsulation material grew 4.7% in 2017 to reach $117 million. IHS expects the market to grow at a 16% CAGR to reach $233 by 2021.

The market growth rate will increase as new OLED fabs begin operation in China and Korea. IHS categorizes OLED encapsulation materials into metal, frit glass, TFE and hybrid. The metal type is mostly used for OLED TVs, in which IHS expects the fastest growth in terms of substrate size. Glass encapsulation will remain strong but will lose market share in the future.

UBI Research estimates smartphone OLED display shipments reached 95.3 million units in Q2 2017, up 2.6% from last year (92.9 million Q2 2016) while TV panel shipments grew 165% to reach 370,000 units.

Compared to last quarter (Q1 2017), smartphone shipments grew 0.6%. Samsung Display is still the clear market leader - with a market share of 96.7%. OLED TV panel shipments increased 21.2% from Q1 2017, and UBI expects this market to continue growing gradually throughout 2017.

OLED maker Truly Semiconductor, based in Hong Kong, sees a large increase in PMOLED demand in the near future, and the company is executing an ambitious PMOLED capacity expansion plan.

Truly is currently operating two production lines: the P1 and P2 lines, both 2.5-Gen and with a monthly capacity of 625K and 1.25M pcs (Truly counts its capacity as per 1" displays). Truly has set out to build two new production lines. The P3 line which is a 2.5-Gen line with a capacity of 3.13 million 1 panels monthly is almost ready and will start mass production by the end of the month.

According to IHS, sales of quantum-dot enhanced LCD TVs, or QLED TVs, dropped 48% in Q2 2017 compared to Q1 2017. Total sales in Q2 amounted to only 351,000 units - down from 671,000 in Q1 2017. OLED TV sales, meanwhile, increased from 29% from 212,000 units to 282,000 units.

Following this report, Business Korea speculates that Samsung Electronics may have to change its premium TV strategy, as it faces market share lose in this very important segment and may lose its leading position in the total TV market.

China-based Sigmaintell Consulting says that shipments of AMOLED-based smartphones slid 13.8% in China in the first half of 2017. A total of 37.4 million such phones were shipped, with the top two vendors being Oppo (13.8 million units) and Vivo (13 million units) accounting for 71% of the market.

Sigmaintell says that shipments fell compared to 2016 because some vendors (including Oppo) opted for in-cell LCD displays over OLED displays.

UBI Research says that as OLED makers are diverting all efforts into flexible OLED production, thin film encapsulation (TFE) is gaining in popularity. Between 2017 and 2021, TFE will be applied to about 70% of all OLED panels in production. The OLED encapsulation equipment market will generate $11 billion in sales.

TFE encapsulation started out as a complex technology that required 11 layers and was slow and expensive. Recent advances allowed OLED makers to reduce the number of layers to just 3 and increase productivity and yields and so lower the production costs. Some film OLED makers opted for hybrid encapsulation (which uses a barrier film) but TFE seems to have become the technology of choice.