Foldable OLEDs: introduction and market status - Page 8

UBI Research estimates that Samsung Display will increase its foldable OLED panel production from ~8 million units in 2021 to 18 million panels in 2022. This will enable Samsung Electronics to increase its foldable phone shipments from around 7 million in 2021 to over 14 million in 2022.

As SDC's foldable panel capacity increases, the company will also have to increase is foldable OLED module production capacity, and the UTG glass processing capacity at Dowoo insys. subsidiary.

UBI Research estimates that Samsung Display shipped 124.76 million smartphone AMOLED panels in Q3 2021, an increase of 24.6% from the previous quarter, enjoying high demand from Apple for its iPhone 13 series.

SDC produced and shipped 62.63 million rigid panels (or about 50% of its total shipments), for low-end and mid-tier smartphones. Flexible OLED shipments were 58.2 million units (out of which 39.31 million went to Apple), and foldable OLEDs shipments reached 3.93 million units.

LG Chem announced that it has developed a new PET-based foldable OLED cover film. LGC says its new film is thinner and more durable than both polyimide films and Ultra-Thin Glass, currently used in foldable OLEDs.

LG Chem designed new materials, which are coated on both sides of the PET film to strengthen its heat resistance and mechanical properties. The company says the new film withstands over 200,000 folding cycles.

At the iMID 2021 conference in Korea, Samsung Display demonstrated a speaker that uses a 12.4" folding-out AMOLED display:

The AI-powered speaker device connects to your phone and can unfold to show a larger image.

Samsung Display announced its latest OLED panel, the Eco²OLED, which increase light output by 33% compared to SDC's previous OLED panels. The increase light translates into a power consumption reduction of up to 25%.

For the Eco²OLED panel, Samsung finally managed to commercialize a polarizer-free OLED, after many years of R&D. The first phone to adopt this display will be Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Fold 3. Interestingly Samsung says that the new design also enabled it to incorporate a high-quality under-the-display camera as more light is entered through the OLED.

Samsung announced several new OLED devices, including its two new foldable smartphones. First up is the Galaxy Z Fold3, which features a 7.6-inch 1768x2208 120Hz 1200 nits foldable Dynamic AMOLED X2 display, and a 6.2-inch 120Hz 832x2268 external AMOLED display. The foldable phone sports Samsung's first under-the-display selfie camera.

Samsung says that the new Galaxy Fold has an improved hinge design and is more durable compared to previous generation devices. The second phone is the Galaxy Flip3, which features a 6.7-inch 120Hz 1200 nits 1080x2640 foldable Dynamic AMOLED display, and an external 1.9" 260x512 Super AMOLED display.

Flexible OLED producer Royole announced a new development kit, called the Royole RoKit, an open platform for designers to develop products based on flexible electronics. The RoKit is now shipping in the US, Europe, Japan and China.

The RoKit includes a 7.8" 1440x1920 60Hz flexible OLED display with touch input (Cicada Wing foldable OLED), Royole's fully-flexible sensor module, an Android 10 motherboard that includes HDMI to MIPI, Wi-Fi, USB and more and more accessories.

Last year DSCC estimated that the foldable OLED market will grow to 94 million panels by 2025. DSCC now updated its forecasts, and lowered its estimates to 75.6 million units in 2025.

DSCC sees Apple starting to adopt foldable OLEDs in 2023, which will boost the total market and will lead to other companies adopting foldable displays. DSCC expects foldable and rollable panels to grow at an 87.5% CAGR from 2020 to 2025. Smartphones will dominate with a market share of over 92% during the entire forecast period.

DSCC posted an interesting blog post in which the company shares its information on Samsung's upcoming foldable smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

First up is the Galaxy Z Flip 3 (which is a bit strange as there's no Galaxy Z Flip 2). This new phone will feature an Ultra Thin Glass cover - which for the first time will not be exclusively produced by SCHOTT. This time Corning will supply some of the UTG for Samsung. According to DSCC, Corning’s UTG will be processed by Korean supplier eCONY. This is interesting - a while back it was reported that Samsung Electronics halted its UTG project with Corning.

Samsung Display is unveiling new OLED technologies today at SID Displayweek 2021. The video below shows all the new displays:

First up we have a tri-foldable AMOLED display shown with a smartphone prototype. The display can be folded twice inside and outside, and when fully open the display is 7.2-inch in size.