Samsung Display - Page 53

Market analysts from CINNO Research estimate that Samsung Display produced 160.9 million AMOLED displays in H1 2018, which sets SDC's market share in the mobile AMOLED market at 93%. The two other large producers are LG Display and Visionox, both producing 3.5 million panels (2% market share).

Both Everdisplay (EDO) and BOE produced 1.7 million panels in the first half of 2018 - or about 1% of the market each. AU Optronics and Tianma produced 0.7 million panels (0.4% market share) and Truly closes the list with a market share of 0.2% (400,000 panels).

Samsung Display announced that its unbreakable smartphone panel has been certified Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the official testing company for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. This display was first demonstrated at SID 2018.

This display is not aimed for just smartphones - SDC sees it being used in the automotive market, the defense market, portable game consoles and tablet PCs. The display is a flexible AMOLED on an "unbreakable" substrate with an overlay plastic window securely adhered to it.

DSCC says that while it is too early indeed to talk about an OLED recovery from an equipment supplier point of view, the smartphone OLED market is set for substantial growth in the second half of 2018.

Samsung is seeing improved OLED fab utilization, and the company still has some unused capacity at its A4 fab. As the gap between rigid OLED and LCD has fallen to around $5, OLED adoption is rising. In addition, smartphone makers are increasingly using flexible OLEDs in high end devices.

Samsung Electronics says that it plans to release its first consumer Micro-LED TV next year. The Wall Luxury will be a high-end module, but "will not be priced as high as people think".

Samsung 146-inch Wall Professional TV

The Wall Luxury will be a consumer version of The Wall Professional - which was launched last month and is now available for pre-orders. Samsung disclosed that the Wall Luxury will be thinner than the professional version at 30 mm (The Wall Professional is 80 mm thick). This is still very thick compared to current OLEDs which are less than 5 mm thick.

IHS says that LG Display is the world's leading AMOLED supplier for smartwatches and wearables. In 2017 LGD shipped 10.64 million AMOLED displays for smartwatches - and it holds a market share of 41.4% (the total market was 25.7 million units in 2017). LG is the exclusive supplier of AMOLED displays for Apple's watch.

Samsung Displays is the 2nd wearable AMOLED Producer, with a 34.8% market share. Everdisplay has a 16.2% share and AU Optronics shipped 5.7% of all wearable AMOLED shipments in 2017. BOE is the fifth largest AMOLED wearable maker with a market share of 1.5%.

Samsung Display is expected to begin foldable OLED production towards the end of 2018, as Samsung Electronics plans to begin selling foldable phones in the beginning of 2019. A new report from Korea's ETNews gives some new information on Samsung's plans.

According to ETNews, Samsung will soon be ready to start producing foldable OLEDs in a new pilot line in its A3 flexible OLED line. In 2018 the company will only be able to produce 100,000 units, and in 2019 the capacity will be about 1 million. It seems that Samsung is in a hurry to have a product out, and is currently ready to start production with low yields and high production costs (according to GBI estimates, the first foldable phone/tablet will cost over $1,800).

The South Korean prosecution has indicted several officials that allegedly tried to sell OLED technology secrets to China. These officials include Korean and Chinese researchers - and also a professor at a national Korean research institution.

The Korean prosecution says that the suspects sold 5,130 files containing OLED technologies owned by Samsung Display. Some of these officials worked at a local contractor of SDC. They say that the officials were offered around $180,000 from a Chinese company - in exchange for joining the company and delivering OLED technology files.

In January 2018 it was reported that LG Display is in the final stages of its discussions with Apple, and the Korean OLED maker expects to supply 15-16 million flexible OLEDs to Apple in 2018 (LGD will supply Apple with 6.5" AMOLEDs for its 2018 large iPhone OLED variant).

It was later reported by the Wall Street Journal, however, that LG Display may not be ready to produce these OLED displays in time for Apple. Today Bloomberg reports that LGD will supply OLEDs to Apple this year, but only 2-4 million panels (out of about 70 million panels) - with the rest supplied by Samsung Display of course. Bloomberg did not detail whether LGD will supply Apple with the 6.5" OLEDs or the 5.8" ones.

DSCC recently said that SDC's OLED fab utilization is starting to improve as production starts for next-gen iPhones and Galaxy phones, and UBI Research also says that the market recovery is starting. CLSA, however, says that it is too soon to talk about OLED recovery.

CLSA agrees that SDC's fab utilization will rise from about 35% to 80% in the second half of 2018, but CLSA also believes that Samsung is not even considering the A4 fab (30,000 monthly substrates) which will remain idle, which means that actual utilization will be lower than stated.

In February 2018 it was first reported that Samsung Display is developing TV panels based on hybrid quantum-dots and OLED architecture (QD-OLED). Samsung later confirmed it is developing such technology, but with no immediate plans to commercialize it.

ETNews now reports that Samsung is now working to establish a pilot 8-Gen line for QD-OLED production. ETNews says that Samsung is collaborating with both Canon Tokki and Kateeva to develop the production equipment - apparently the OLED layers will be evaporated using Canon's machines while the QD filters will be deposited using ink-jet printing equipment made by Kateeva. Samsung aims to finalize the production line by the second half of 2019.