Market updates - Page 49

DSCC expects the OLED market to rapidly grow in the near future, as AMOLED production capacity will increase at a CAGR of 41% from 2016 (5.3 million square meters) to 2021 (29.4 million square meters). OLED revenues will reach $21 billion in 2017 (a rise of 46% compared to 2016) and will reach $46 billion in 2021.

Smartphones are still the largest OLED application by far - with a 86% market share (revenues) in 2017 and 81% in 2021. The second largest application by revenues are OLED TVs, and other applications follow with a small market share - but one that will increase as supply looses in the future. If we look at shipments, then smartphones acount for 94% of OLED shipments, and the 2nd and 3rd applications are VR headsets and smart watches. OLED TV shipments will reach 6.5 million in 2021 (rising at a CAGR of 49% from 2016 to 2021).

IHS estimates that flexible OLED production capacity is set to increase from 1.5 million square meters to 20.1 million square meters between 2016 and 2020. That's a compound annual growth rate of 91%!

IHS says that almost all new small-sized displays OLED capacity added in the future will be used to produce flexible OLEDs, which will grow the market share of flexible OLEDs for mobile applications from 28% today to 80% by 2020. In the years between 2016 to 2020, OLED producers in China, Korea and Japan will build the equivalent of 46 new flexible AMOLED fabs (each with 30,000 monthly substrates).

UBI Research estimates that the AR and VR market will grow to 96.4 million units and $58.7 billion in device sales by 2021. In 2017, 17 million units will ship generating $3.9 billion in revenues. From 2017 to 2021 the market will grow with a CARG of 54%.

According to UBI, the VR and AR market was split almost 50% between OLED and other technology displays, with 2.6 million OLEDs shipped in 2017. Most next generation VR headsets will use OLED displays, however, and by 2021 OLEDs will occupy 80% of the market.

Analysts from IHS say that as AMOLED displays continue to replace LCD displays and the AMOLED market is growing quickly - the market for fine metal mask (FMM) components will also experience fast growth in coming years.

IHS sees the FMM market in 2017 generate $234 in revenues. The market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38% until 2022 - to reach $1.2 billion. IHS says that FMM production is a challenge and FMM technology has become a bottleneck as display resolution is increasing and the number of FMM suppliers is limited. The leading producer is Dai Nippon Printing, and the company's FMM masks are using to produce the majority of AMOLED displays.

IHS says that as production volumes of AMOLED panels increases the gap between OLEDs and LCDs narrow - in fact currently the price of a 5.5" HD AMOLED display ($12.1) is cheaper than an equivalent LTPS LCD ($12.2). The main cause of recent price reductions are lower depreciation costs and lower labor costs.

For higher-resolution displays, LCDs are still much cheaper than comparable OLEDs - IHS estimates that a 5.5" QHD LCD costs 30% less than a comparable AMOLED.

IHS says that AMOLED panel shipment will increase 63% in 2017, driven by strong demand from smartphone makers. Looking forward the AMOLED market will experience fast growth, as demand will rise for smartphones, TVs, VR HMDs and mobile PCs.

In 2017 the AMOLED market will reach $25.2 billion in revenues, up from about $15 billion in 2016. The OLED TV market will grow to 1.5 million units (up from from 890,000 units in 2016). Mobile display resolution continue to increase, and in 2017 68% of shipments will be of FHD, QHD and WQHD resolutions.

Today we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the flexible, transparent, 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 July 2017.

The OLED for VR/AR Market Report:

• Why OLEDs are adopted in almost all VR HMDs
• What kind of displays are required for VR and AR applications
• What the future holds for the VR and AR markets
• Current and future VR and AR systems

The report package provides a great introduction to the emerging VR and AR market, and details the role that OLED displays will have. Read more here!

UBI Research says that AMOLED revenues reached $4.31 billion in Q1 2017, up 15% from Q1 2016. In terms of units sold, UBI says that 99.1 million AMOLED panels were shipped - up 9% from Q1 2016. Obviously this means that average price per panel is up - probably because most of the growth came from higher-end flexible AMOLED displays and larger OLED TV panels.

Looking forward, UBI says that in the next quarters over 100 million AMOLED panels will ship - and over 300,000 OLED TV panels. The total AMOLED maket will grow at a CAGR of 33% - and reach $59.3 billion in 2020.

IHS says that OLED TV shipments will reach 10 million units in 2023, up from about 1.5 million in 2017. The OLED TV market will grow at a CAGR of 42% from 2017, but the growth will decelerate as can be seen in the chart below.

The high costs of producing OLED TV panels will remain a challenge and will be the main reason why production of OLED TV panels won't accelerate in the near future. Producers are looking into ink-jet printing as a way to lower production costs but the soluble emitting materials are still under performing and also the production yields are still low. IHS says that OLED makers are aiming to start mass printing OLED TV panels by 2019.

UBI Research estimates that the OLED emitter material market will grow from $960 million in 2017 to $3.36 billion in 2021.

UBI says that displays shipping to Apple will amount to $560 million in emitter material sales in 2021.