iSuppli

Market research firm iSuppli expects the OLED TV market to grow quickly in coming years. 2014 will still be a slow year with only 50,000 sets sold globally (most of them will be made by LG), but this will quickly grow to 700,000 in 2015, 2.2 million in 2016 and 5.1 million in 2017. In 2018, over 10 million OLED TVs will ship.

iSuppli came back from CES with the conclusion that while there are still challenges, it seems that TV makers are committed to promote OLED technologies. They expect the technical issues to be overcome and high-volume production will begin soon.

Research house IHS says that they expect flexible OLED smartphone display shipments to reach 814,000 units in 2014. IHS sees a steady but 'modest' growth in the future as shipments will almost double each year to reach 8.3 million units in 2018.

In August 2013 IHS said that they expect flexible OLED sales to reach $21.9 million in 2013 and grow quickly to almost $100 million in 2014. The flexible OLED market will continue growing at a very fast rate as it will reach almost $4 billion by 2018 and almost $12 billion by 2020.

IHS says that demand for OLED materials will rise almost 27% in 2014, to $445 million, up from $350 million in 2013. The market in 2013 grew 49% from 2012.

IHS says that they expect both AUO and Japan Display to start mass producing AMOLED panels in 2014. This means that there will be four major OLED makers in 2014 (AUO, JDI, SDC and LGD) compared to only one in 2012 (SDC). This means that material makers are expected to compete in a more diverse market environment with increased demand and a broader base of customers.

IHS says that they expect flexible OLED sales to reach $21.9 million in 2013 and grow quickly to almost $100 million in 2014. The flexible OLED market will continue growing at a very fast rate as it will reach almost $4 billion by 2018 and almost $12 billion by 2020.

This is a very aggressive forecast. IHS says that they expect flexible OLEDs to bring about an "unprecedented change in flat displays". Those displays will make an "innovative change in the conventional display industry structure once commercialized". The first products will be plastic-based OLEDs which are thin and durable. Rollable and foldable OLEDs are forecasted to be introduced after 2016.

IHS iSuppli says that small AMOLED displays for mobile phone applications will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26% from 2013 to 2017. Shipments in 2013 will reach over 195 million units, and this will grow to over 447 million in 2017. AMOLED mobile handset market share will grow from 7.9% in 2013 to 15.2% in 2017.

Interestingly, iSuppli estimates that the AMOLED market share for 4" or larger displays will only grow from 23% to 24.4% by 2017. This means that most of the AMOLED growth will come from smaller displays, and that major handset makers besides Samsung (i.e. Apple, HTC and LG) will not adopt AMOLED displays. This seems rather unlikely to me. Especially when you consider flexible OLEDs - and that LG already said that these displays will bring "real value" for mobile devices.

IHS iSuppi posted a "virtual teardown" for the upcoming Galaxy S4, saying that the bill of materials is about $236 (for the HSPA+ S4 with 16 gigabytes of NAND flash). According to iSuppli, the 5" Full-HD Super AMOLED display costs $75. As the 4.8" WXGA AMOLED on the S3 costs $65, this represents the largest cost increase for the S4 compared to its predecessor (The cost of making an S3 is estimated at $208). The cost of the AMOLED display is over 30% of the cost of the entire S4.

Other expensive components on the HSPA+ S4: the Exynos 5 processor at $30, memory (NAND + Flash) at $28, the two cameras at $20, the UI and sensor subsystem at $16 and the HSPA+ chip at $16. You can see the complete list on the table above, which includes also the S4 LTE and S3 Built-Of-Materials (BOM) estimates.

iSuppli posted updated OLED TV shipments forecast for 2013-2015, and they see a slightly lower shipment volume compared to their previous estimates in January 2012. Now the company estimates that in 2013 only 1,600 OLED TV sets will be sold. This will grow to 1.7 million TVs in 2015.

iSuppli assumes that the only OLED TV to ship in 2013 is LG's 55EM9700. They think that Samsung will not be able to start production of their F9500 OLED TV in 2013. This conflicts with reports from Korea claiming that Samsung will actually launch their OLED TV next week. Hopefully iSuppli are wrong on that one.

iSupply says that AMOLED display shipments were up 14% in the first quarter of 2012 compared to Q4 2011 - even though this is a traditionally slow season. Shipments are up 80% compared to Q1 2011. iSupply sees AMOLEDs gaining further traction as they are being adopted by tablets.

AMOLED average panel price actually increased 0.9% to $54 - but this is due to the introduction of higher specification displays. AMOLED still carry a price premium of 15 to 25 percent compared to LTPS LCDs. A 4.3" qHD (960x54) Super-AMOLED costs $51. A comparable LCD costs $42.

Earlier today, LG said that they hope to sell 200,000-300,000 OLED TVs in 2012, and up to 2 million in 2013. Market research company iSuppli is much less optimistic - they say that global OLED TV shipments in 2012 will amount to just 34,000 units. This will grow to 2.1 million in 2015.

It's not clear from iSuppli's report, but it seems that they are only taking LG into account in their forecasts. Samsung will also offer its own 55" OLED TV in 2012, and today we heard that Panasonic are also developing their own OLED TV.

IHS iSupply says that AMOLED unit shipments will jump 110% in 2012 and reach 154.7 million units. iSupply estimates that 2011 shipments will total 73.7 million (55% increase over 2010's 47.4 million units). The AMOLED display market will continue to grow quickly and reach 297.3 million units in 2015 (claiming more than 10% of the total handset market). This is quite in line with iSupply's earlier estimates that 2015 shipments will reach 271 million units. iSupply seems to be talking about handset displays only, and they are counting the number of units - it's important to know that mobile displays keep getting larger and more expensive.

Currently, Samsung is the clear market leader, while LG, AUO and CMI are also advancing thier OLED programs. While iSupply says that Chinese makers (BOE display, Irico and Tianma) are ramping up investment to catch up with the Korean makers, they also predict that they will find it very difficult to surpass Samsung.