Omdia (IHS) - Page 13

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 flexible display shipments will grow quickly in the near future. They expect about 3.2 million such displays to ship in 2013, and this will grow to almost 800 million displays by 2020. In terms of revenue, the total market will reach $41.3 billion in 2020. The leading display technology for flexible displays will be OLEDs, which will account for 64% of the market in 2020.

IHS classifies flexible displays into four generations. The first one are plastic-based displays that are unbreakable, but are still flat. The second-gen ones are conformable and can be molded to curved surfaces. The third-gen panels are bendable/rollable - and can be manipulated by end users. The fourth generation are disposable displays- so cheap that they can replace regular paper and be thrown away after use.