BOE Display - Page 22

Many OLED producers believe that Ink-Jet printing of OLED emissive materials is the best way to achieve lower-cost OLED TV production, and to enable OLEDs to compete in the medium part of the TV market. Ink-Jet printing is an efficient process (less material waste compared to evaporation) and it can be very quick as well. The main drawbacks of inkjet are the limited resolution and the need for soluble emissive materials which are less efficient compared to evaporation ones.

A Kateeva OLED ink-jet printing system

These challenges are being overcome, and it seems that at least four groups (in Korea, Japan and China) are charging forward towards mass production of ink-jet printed OLEDs. Ink-jet printer makers and soluble material suppliers are also optimistic ink-jet printing commercialization will soon be here as the material performance gap is diminishing.

Digitimes Research estimates that Chinese OLED makers currently hold a 7.5% market share in the global small and medium AMOLED market, but Chinese makers will see very fast growth (76% CAGR) and will reach a market share of 33.4% in 2022.

China already has several AMOLED producers - including EverDisplay, BOE, TianMa and Visionox. Digitimes Research estimates that BOE will emergy as China's leading AMOLED producer, and by 2021 its capacity will be larger than LG Display's capacity and BOE will be the world's second largest AMOLED maker.

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.

Universal Display announced that it has signed long-term OLED agreements with BOE Technology Group. Under these agreements, UDC will supply phosphorescent OLED materials to BOE. UDC and BOE signed their first agreement in 2014 and it is great to see these evolve into long-term agreements.

BOE started to produce flexible OLED displays at its Chengdu B7 6-Gen fab in October 2017. BOE's B7 fab is the company's first flexible AMOLED line and actual real mass production will probably begin at about Q1 2018. The full capacity is 48,000 substrates per month, but this will only be achieved in the first half of 2019.

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.

Last month BOE started to produce flexible OLED displays at its Chengdu B7 fab, and according to ETnews the company is aiming to become a future Apple supplier and so is planning ambitious flexible OLED capacity expansion.

BOE's B7 fab, the company's first flexible AMOLED line, will have a full capacity of 48,000 6-Gen substrate per month (this will only be achieved in the first half of 2019). In October 2016 BOE announced another 6-Gen OLED fab (the B11 line) in Mianyang. The Miangyang fab will have a similar capacity and will initiate production in 2019.

Last week BOE Display held an official ceremony during which it demonstrated its first batch of flexible OLED panels made at its new B7 6-Gen OLED fab in Chengdu. China Daily posted the video you see below showing the panels on display.

At the video you can see a foldable AMOLED prototype, a flexible display in an edge-type design, a design that seems similar to the one used in Apple's iPhone X and finally several curved OLED prototypes.

A few days ago we reported that BOE started to produce flexible OLED displays at its Chengdu B7 fab, and yesterday the company held an official ceremony during which it demonstrated its first batch of flexible OLED panels, and delivered samples to representatives from Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and others Chinese phone makers - although its not clear whether any of these are already acquiring panels.

The first panels produced by BOE are 5.5" in size with a resolution of 1440x2560 (QHD) - these are smartphone panels that will be adopted in an edge-type configuration. BOE says that its production line is highly automated, and BOE's panels come with a touch layer already laminated. The whole panel is just 0.03 mm thick.

Last month we reported that BOE aims to start producing flexible OLEDs at its new 6-Gen B7 fab in Chengdu by the end of October 2017. A new report from Korea's ETNews sheds some more light about BOE's plans.

The annual capacity of the B7 line, when complete, will be about 90 million smartphone sized displays (45,000 monthly 6-Gen substrates). According to ETNews, BOE aims to produce 5.5" flexible OLEDs at first, and then add a 5.99" display in November. BOE's initial capacity will be very low - around 10,000 panels per month.

Market research company DSCC has updated their OLED models, as the company sees more capital spending then before and a larger OLED market going forward.

The OLED market in general will grow 57% in 2017, according to DSCC, to reach $23.2 billion. Growth will continue to be strong with a 50% increase in 2018 (to $34.9 billion) and a CAGR of 27% from 2016 to 2022. In 2022 the market will surpass $60 billion.