Samsung Display - Page 48

DSCC released the interesting (but confusing, note the legend starts at 350M) chart below, detailing the market share of smartphone OLED producers in 2016-2019. As can be seen Samsung will remain the dominant producer, but its market share in 2019 will drop from 94% in 2018 to around 85%.

Non-SDC shipments will increase to 73 million units in 2019 - led by LG Display (~25 million units), BOE (around 20 million) and Visionox (around 15 million units).

Exposure to blue light has been linked to many health issues - and one of the advantages of OLED displays and lighting panels has always been lower blue light emission compared to LED based technologies.

Samsung recently announced its latest AMOLED displays (adopted in the Galaxy S10 family of smartphones), and the company now says that its newest OLEDs produces considerably less blue-light emissions than any other mobile display in use today. Samsung's blue-light-eradicating advancement has just been certified by world-class German testing and certification body, TÃœV Rheinland, which awarded Samsung's AMOLEDs its ‘Eye Comfort’ certification.

Samsung announced a handful of new devices, all with OLED displays. We'll start with the company's 2019 flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S10. It includes four different variants -

• Galaxy S10 5G: 6.7" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
• Galaxy S10+: 6.4" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
• Galaxy S10: 6.1" 3040x1440 flexible AMOLED
• Galaxy S10e: 5.8" 2280x1080 AMOLED (rigid?)

The S10 phones use Samsung's latest AMOLEDs, that are now HDR10+ certified, include an under-the-OLED fingerprint sensor (Qualcomm ultra-sonic) and cut-outs for the selfie cameras. Samsung calls these displays "Dynamic AMOLED" (due to the HDR support, probably) and "Infinity-O Display" due to the camera cut-outs.

Samsung finally officially launched its Galaxy Fold foldable smartphone device. The Galaxy Fold features a 7.3" 1536 x 2152 foldable Infinity Flex AMOLED display that folds inside, in addition to a secondary cover display - a 4.6" 840×1960 Super AMOLED.

Besides the exciting foldable display, the phone/tablet device features an octa-core chipset, 12 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage, a large battery, triple camera setup on the back and dual front cameras.

DSCC says that in January 2019 flexible OLED utilization rates dropped to 39% - due to seasonal weakness and Apple's slow iPhone sales. CLSA says that February will another bad month and utilization rates will even drop slightly to 37%. In March things will improve to almost 50% - following the launch of Samsung's Galaxy S10.

Looking at the entire quarter, DSCC sees utilization rates dropping from 68% in Q4 2018 to 41% in Q1 2019. Glass input for all flexible OLED fabs will be down 3% from last year. Rigid OLED utilization rates have been up in 2019 - from 44% in December 2018 to 49% in January 2019, and DSCC sees it continuing to climb in Q1 2019, as a result of increased adoption of rigid OLED by Chinese smartphone makers.

CLSA released an interesting investment note and details Samsung Display's 2019 plans and expectations. Samsung's A3 flexible OLED line suffered from low utilization (52% in 2018) and Samsung hopes to improve this to 70% in 2019. Samsung shipped 145 million flexible OLEDs in 2018 and aims to sell 215 million in 2019 (a 48% increase).

In 2018 Samsung shipped 7 million flexible OLEDs to Chinese phone makers, and it aims to increase this to 40-45 million in 2019 (CLSA is skeptical of Samsung's ability to meet its target - even though the company seeks to cut its prices and offer volume discounts and offer the lower specification panels to mid-range smartphones). CLSA sees SDC's average flexible OLED price declining 15% in 2019.

In January 2019 Dell announced that it will release 15" OLED models of its 2019 XPS 15, Dell G7 15 and the Alienware m15. Back then Dell said that the laptops will ship in March 2019, but Dell’s VP General Manager now says that the target date is April.

We've been waiting for OLED laptops for many years, so one more month to wait is not a big deal - if indeed the OLED laptops will ship in April. In January Samsung Display announced that it will start mass producing its new 15.6" UHD (3840x2160) OLED display panels in February 2019. Perhaps Samsung is delaying its mass production - or perhaps this is Dell's decision or need to postpone.

According to reports, Samsung Display will hold an investment review committee on April 2019 to decide whether to go ahead with plans to start producing QD-OLED TV panels. If the plan is approved, Samsung will start installing production equipment towards the end of 2019, with mass production starting by the end of 2020 or early 2021.

According to earlier reports, Samsung aimed to start pilot production of QD-OLED TV panels in 2019. It's not clear whether the new reports suggest a delay or whether they only refer to the mass production step, with pilot production proceeding as planned.

DSCC says that production costs for a 55" QD-OLED TV panel at Samsung Display's 8.5-Gen fab will reach almost $800 in 2019. While this will fall to around $450 in 2022, Samsung will still lose money on every panel sold if DSCC has its price and cost estimates right.

It is important to note that most of the cost is depreciation costs - which means that in terms of cash on each panel, SDC's margins will actually be around 40%. Part of the reason for he high cost of required equipment is the need to use 12 TFT masks.. SDC is apparently looking to reduce the mask number which will lower production costs.

Update: the video has been removed, but the Galaxy Fold device has been announced.

In November 2018 Samsung unveiled its upcoming foldable smartphone, and according to reports it may officially launch this new product on February 20th (at the Samsung Galaxy S10 unveiling event). Samsung Vietnam accidentally published an ad showing several new technologies, including a foldable smartphone

Samsung first foldable smartphone/tablet device will use two OLED displays - a large 7.3" 1532x2152 foldable AMOLED that folds inside, and a smaller secondary OLED (4.5" 840x1960). Samsung brands the foldalbe display as the Samsung Infinity Flex Display.