Idemitsu Kosan opened a new office in Shanghai to support OLED material sales to OLED panel makers in China, and to collect information about the Chinese market.
Idemistsu expects OLED demand to increase due to the expansion of the OLED industry in China. The Shanghai Office is Idemitsu’s third overseas base for the OLED materials business, following those in South Korea and Taiwan.
China's OLED production capacity is indeed expected to increase sharply in the near future. Currently the only Chinese AMOLED producers are Everdisplay, with a 4.5-Gen production line and Visionox which has recently started to produce panels in their 5.5-Gen fab.
BOE Display is planning several AMOLED fabs - the company is constructing a 5.5-Gen LTPS fab in Ordos, which will also produce both LCDs and AMOLED displays, it is starting to build a $3.5 billion Gen-6 LTPS LCD/AMOLED production line in Chengdu, and it is also planning a 8.5 OLED TV fab in Hefei Xinzhan.
The TCL Group announced that it is going to raise $926 million to build CSOT's T2 8.5-Gen fab, we're not sure if this plan is still underway, and in addition CSOT is building a 6-Gen display fab in a 16 billion RMB ($2.5 billion) investment. Other Chinese AMOLED players include TianMa, which is getting ready to release the first panels in 2016 with plans for three separate OLED production lines, Truly that has plans to start production in a 4.5-Gen fab in early 2016, Guangzhou New Vision and perhaps AIV-BEX too.
