India OLED industry

DSCC says that display makers are increasing their OLED CapEx investment as demand for OLED displays is on the rise. DSCC has raised its forecast for OLED spending by 14% compared to their previous update, while they retain their previous forecast for LCD, OLED microdisplay and microLED display equipment spending. 

Between 2020 and 2027, OLED display makers will invest $44 billion in new production equipment. The spending on OLED equipment will keep growing year after year from 2023 to 2027, reaching $6.5 billion in 2027, as OLED penetration in the smartphone, tablet and laptop market is increasing, and fab utilization is increasing too, encouraging display makers to add capacity.

In 2022, Japan Display (JDI) announced that it has developed a "historic breakthrough in display technology" - a new OLED deposition process which they refer to as eLEAP, that is said to be cost effective and can be used to create freeform OLEDs that are brighter, more efficient, and longer lasting compared to OLEDs produced using mask evaporation (FMM).

Japan Display announced an agreement with China-based LCD maker HKC Corp to mass produce panels by 2025 in China, based on JDI's technology, but the plan was later cancelled, and JDI said it will establish its own factory in China. The company now says that it is progressing with its negotiations with the Wuhu Economic and Technological Development Zone (in Anhui Province), and the hope is to reach a final agreement will be reached by the end of the year. Interestingly, JDI also says that it is considering building an eLEAP AMOLED fab in India, but we do not have more details.

Last month we reported that India-based gold-trading company Rajesh Exports has proposed to build a $3 billion 6-Gen AMOLED fab in India. It is now reported that the project is progressing, and Rajesh has signed an MOU with the local government of Telangana, a state in southern India.

Rajesh Exports established a subsidiary called Elest for this project. The plan is to build a 6-Gen AMOLED fab and produce displays for smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Digitimes has an interesting article, in which it details plans by a company based in India to establish a $3 billion AMOLED fab, in India .

The company, Rajesh Exports, is a gold trading company, that aims to become an EV battery producer, and an AMOLED display maker. The company apparently has launched a subsidiary called Elest for the AMOLED project, and it started talking to three states in India, in order to gain support for its 240 Rupee (around $3.1 billion USD) fab.

The Indian government is planning to offer incentives schemes with an aim to setup display fabs in India. The Indian ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) has invited "experssions of interest" from companies that aim to setup display fabs in India - for LCD, OLED or QLED displays. Companies have been given time till April 30 to apply.

This follows previous incentive schemes in India for mobile devices and IT hardware manufacturing. For the display manufacturing scheme, the Indian government plans to establish a complete ecosystem for components throughout the country.

Samsung Display said it is sending a hundred employees to India, to help install equipment at its new OLED module factory in Noida city Uttar Pradesh state. Samsung aims to start producing OLED modules at the new fab in the first half of 2021.

Samsung hopes that this Indian plant will help it react faster to local demand in India. In 2020 Samsung once again is the top smartphone vendor in India (after retaking Xiaomi).

According to Invest India, Samsung Electronics is looking into establishing a smartphone OLED display manufacturing fab in India's Uttar Pradesh. The facility, which will likely to be a module assembly factory, will begin operations in 2021.

Samsung Electronics is reportedly looking to remove facilities from China to other countries, including Vietnam and now India. The company aims to receive tax incentives from the Indian government towards this ~$700 million facility.

According to India Times, the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras is seeking government funding to start a project to develop low-cost OLED production processes. The IIT estimate the project at Rs500 million (about $78 million).

The researchers at the IIT are looking at two technologies: a new patterning technology, and a silicon based substrate that will enable to integrate the backplane into the substrate and so lower costs.

India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has announced a new $10 million project to develop LED and OLED lighting, with first versions of LEDs expected by March 2012. The LED chips will be packaged with phosphor coating and converted into white LED. The target for luminous efficacy of the LED chip is 25-50 lumens/watt.

After they finish the R&D phases, they plan to transfer the technology to an Indian LED chip maker and LED packaging companies.

The company has also chalked out plans for the commercial production of organic light emitting diodes (OLED) screens, which it has developed in collaboration with IIT, Kanpur, and Department of Science and Technology, in another 18 months.