The OLED Association posted an interesting story detailing their forecasts for the OLED market's growth between 2014 and 2018. In the bottom line, the OLED-A expects the OLED market to grow at a CAGR of 22% in that period. Capacity will grow from 1 million sqm in 2009 to 6.8 million sqm by the end of 2018.
The small/medium non-flexible OLED segment is seen as stagnating in 2016, with a relatively modest growth starting in 2017. Overall growth will be 7% CAGR in 2014-2018 as many small players will grow their capacity (but will not reach large volumes) or enter the market and it seems that SDC will not increase production by much. In 2018 nine companies will produce small-sized rigid OLEDs, led by Samsung (62%), JDI (8.8%), AUO (8.3%) and LGD (5.4%).
The main reason for that is that SDC, and others, will focus on flexible OLEDs. This will be the fastest growing OLED market segment - growing at 52% in the period. Samsung Display is expected to remain the dominate player (50.6%) followed by LG (18.7%), Sharp (6.5%) and JDI (3.2%).
Large-area production (OLED TV panels, mostly) will also grow at a very fast page - 40% CAGR. This market will be led by LG Display
Large area capacity is forecasted to reach 1.7m sq. m/qtr. By the end of 2018 the OLED Association sees Samsung overtaking LGD as the largest OLED TV maker. This is rather surprising as they do not forecast any growth for LG after 2016.
