OLED Tablets - Introduction and Latest Industry News - Page 2

According to DSCC, 4.1 million OLED tablet panels shipped in the second quarter of 2024, a new record high, as Apple launched its 2024 OLED iPad Pro tablets. Apple quickly became the largest buyer of OLED tab let panels - with a 72% market share in Q2 2024 (followed by Huawei at 13% and Samsung at 9%).

DSCC expects the OLED tablet panel market to fall 5% in the next quarter to 3.9 million panels (but up 169% over Q3 2023), as Apple reduces its orders dramatically after the launch, but this will be almost offset by new panels shipments to Microsoft and Honor. Growth will continue in Q4, and total panel shipments are expected to each over 14 million units in 2024, over 200% growth from 2023.

Korea's The Elec reports that Apple is planning to release an OLED iPad Air device in 2016. The leading display producer will be Samsung Display.

According to the report, the iPad Air AMOLED will be a single-stack LTPS AMOLED device, unlike the tandem OLEDs used in the 2024 iPad Pro devices. The report also suggests that the same AMOLED displays may also be used in the 2026 iPad Mini devices - as Apple aims to adopt OLEDs in all of its iPad devices in the future. But Apple hasn't fully decided on its iPad Mini OLED adoption roadmap yet.

According to reports, Apple has cut its total 2024 OLED iPad Pro panel orders from Samsung and LG to around 7-8 million units, down from its planned 9-10 million units, as the demand for Apple's new iPads is not as high as expected.

Apple has also increased LG Display's order share, at the expense of Samsung Display. The company asked LGD to produce about a million more 11" panels compared to its previous orders. 

LG Display reported its financial results for Q2 2024 - with revenues reaching $4.85 billion (an increase of 42% compared to last year) and a net loss of $67 million (down from around $637 million in 2023).

LG Display benefited greatly from Apple's introduction of its 2024 iPad pro tablets, for which LGD is the main AMOLED supplier. The company is also expecting to sell a record number of iPhone AMOLED panels later this year. LGD says that the proportion of OLED products rose 10% of its total sales, reaching 52% - which means that OLED is now the company's main product line in terms of revenues.

According to Omdia, sales of OLED panels in sizes over 9-inch (the company refers to these as Large Area Displays) will increase 124.6% in 2024. In 2023, the market contracted 25.7%, with the only exception being OLED monitor panels that grew in shipments.

In 2024, Omdia says that all application areas will see an increase in shipments - TVs, monitors, tablets and laptops. Only the company's "other" category will see a decrease in sales. In particular, tablet OLED shipments are projected to increase by 294% compared to 2023, largely due to Apple's adoption of OLEDs in the 2024 iPad Pro tablets. Laptop OLED sales will increase 152.6%, and monitors OLEDs will increase 139.9%. Finally, OLED TV panel shipments will increase 34.8%.

DSCC says that the AMOLED industry (mainly smartphones and IT applications) is still in oversupply, and this will remain so until 2028 - but demand is expected to increase faster than capacity and so the oversupply will gradually decline to 2028.

Regarding OLED TVs, demand will increase and fab utilization will improve - but in this market DSCC also sees an oversupply situation to 2028 at least (a surplus of 22% in 2028).

DSCC says OLED revenues are expected to grow 12% in 2024 and reach $44 billion. OLED panel shipments will grow 18% in 2024. The fastest growing OLED market segments are tablets and monitors.

OLED tablet panel shipments will increase 202% in 2024, and this will result in a 632% increase in revenues, driven mostly by Appe's first adoption of OLED panels in its 13" and 11.1" iPad Pro tablets. OLED monitors will grow slower, but still impressively - 80% in shipments, and 45% in revenues.

DSCC says that shipments of OLED for tablets in Q1 2024 rose 131% from last year, to reach 1.72 million units, as Apple started to adopt OLEDs in its iPad tablets. In fact, shipments to Apple represented 47% of all OLED shipments in the quarter (following by Huawei at 25% and Samsung at 17%). 

DSCC sees the growth continuing to accelerate - and in Q2 2024 shipments will rise to 3.9 million units, or up 333% from Q2 2023, as Apple, Microsoft, Huawei and Samsung will all enjoy an increase in OLED tablet sales. 

Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) announced that it has started mass producing fine metal masks (FMM) at its new production line at Kurosaki Plant, in Fukuoka, Japan. DNP invested $140 million to expand the production line.

8-Gen and 6-Gen FMM samples (DNP)

The new production line is producing masks suitable for 8-Gen substrates. As the OLED industry is moving to expand its IT AMOLED display production for laptops, monitors and tablets, companies are building larger (8.7-Gen mostly) production lines that require these larger masks. While the company is already producing at the new fab, it will also announced that it may gradually expand production further at the new line, depending on market demand.

Visionox is the latest company to announce a new AMOLED production line, targeting the IT display market - laptops, monitors and tablets. The company said that it will best 55 billion Yuan (around $7.6 billion USD) to build a 8.6-Gen production line in Hefei, Anhui province.

Visionox's production line will have a monthly capacity of 32,000 substrates. The company did not share any details regarding the timeline of this project, or its financing.