Market updates - Page 50

LG Display reported its financial results for Q1 2017 - with a record operating profit of just over $900 million as the selling price of its display panel increase.

LG Display says that the company is increasing its investment into OLEDs (going forward 70% of its capital expenditures will go to OLED production and R&D), and is also increasing production of OLED TV panels. The company is currently making about 300,000 OLED TV panels in a quarter, but this will be increased to 500,000 in the second half of 2017.

I'm happy to announce the seventh edition of The OLED Handbook, the most comprehensive resource on OLED technology, industry and market - now updated for 2017. The OLED industry grows and changes very fast, and the new edition include new details on the OLED mobile display market, Apple's OLED plans, new production fabs in China, OLED TVs, flexible OLEDs and more.

Reading this book, you'll learn all about:

• OLED technology and materials and production processes
• How OLEDs compare to LCD displays
• OLED TVs, flexible OLEDs and transparent OLEDs
• The OLED lighting industry
• The future of OLED displays and lighting and the challenges ahead

The book also provides:

• A history of OLED development
• A guide to OLED investment
• A comprehensive list of OLED companies
• A list of existing and planned AMOLED fabs
• OLED lighting roadmaps
• An in-depth look into flexible OLEDs and OLED encapsulation

The OLED handbook has been read by hundreds of display engineers, business developers, researchers, equipment vendors, OLED material companies, private investors and others who wished to learn more about OLEDs today and in the future. I truly believe that it is the best introduction to OLED displays and lighting!

IHS says that demand for flexible OLED is sharply increasing and in Q3 2017 the company expects revenues of flexible OLEDs to surpass those of rigid OLEDs for the first time.

Flexible AMOLED revenues in Q3 will reach $3.2 billion while those of rigid (glass-based) OLEDs will reach $3 billion. Flexible AMOLED revenues will continue to climb throughout 2018 and reach about $4.5 billion in Q4 2018. Revenues of rigid OLEDs will actually start declining in 2017, according to IHS - which is a bit of a surprise, even if average panel price will decrease. Rigid OLED shipments is rising even from existing fabs as yields are improving.

Solomon Systech announced it financial results for 2016, and the Hong Kong based display IC maker reported strong growth of its PMOLED display drivers in 2016, following strong demand from the wearable market.

Solomon Systech also announced several new design wins for its PMOLED display drivers with "world-renowned brands of wearable health and fitness devices". In January 2017 the company shipped its millionth SSD1306 PMOLED driver, the best selling OLED driver ever. The SSD1306 has been introduced in 2008 and is (according to Solomon Systech) the de-facto PMOLED module design standard.

Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC) released some very interesting information regarding the mobile OLED market from its recent OLED market report by Yoshio Tamura and Ross Young. DSCC expects mobile AMOLED demand to grow from almost 400 million panels in 2016 to almost 1.2 billion in 2021.

Samsung Electronics, who's already using AMOLED displays in almost 80% of its smartphones will not increase its AMOLED orders by a lot, but shipments will grow dramatically to other players led by Apple, Huawei and Oppo.

Today we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the transparent, automotive, microdisplay, VR/AR, graphene and flexible 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 March 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!

Trendforce released a new analysis on the mobile memory and displays markets, and the Taiwan-based market research company says the price of AMOLED panels started to climb in the second half of 2016 following the supply shortage of these displays.

Trendforce also estimates that OLED prices will continue to rise throughout 2017 - probably as the supply shortage and high demand for OLED displays is not expected to change during the year.

In October 2016 Sony launched its PlayStation VR HMD in Japan, and early reports said that the company sold 90% of available stock within a week. Sony later launched the headset globally, and now says that it sold 915,000 units within four months, on the way to surpass the company's expectations of 1 million units within six months.

Sony's PlayStation VR uses a 5.7" FHD (1920x1080) AMOLED display (produced by Samsung Display), 360-degree tracking and 3D audio. It is now shipping globally for $399 (headset only).

UBI Research estimates that Samsung Display's AMOLED market share will be 89% in 2017. As more and more OLED producers join the market, SDC's market share will fall to 72% by 2020.

Samsung Display will still increase its production capacity substantially - but it will not be able to remain its market share. The whole market will grow to $57 billion by 2020 (up from about $12-15 billion in 2016), so this is still an excellent growth for Samsung.

IHS says that the OLED industry is now entering a huge capacity-growth phase, and IHS estimates that the AMOLED production equipment market will reach $9.5 billion in revenues in 2017.

Almost half of that amount will go to TFT backplane equipment ($4.4 billion in 2017), while the organic layer deposition market will reach 2.2 billion and the encapsulation tools market will reach $1.2 billion. IHS estimates that Canon Tokki is the leader in OLED deposition equipment, and has a market share of over 50%.