Omdia (IHS) - Page 7

IHS says that OLED panels take up to 61.1% of the total smartphone display market in Q3 2018, by revenues. OLED sales reached $6.6 billion in the quarter, out of a $10.7 billion market.

The leading OLED producer is still of course Samsung Display - which accounted for 93.3% of the total smartphone OLED panel market (and 94.2% of the flexible OLED panel market). Samsung's OLED dominance also helps it to enjoy a 57.8% market share in the total smartphone market (LCD+OLED) - far ahead of BOE (7.8%) and Tianma (7.7%) which are the 2nd and 3rd largest smartphone display producers.

IHS says that the foldable OLED market will grow from 200,000 units in 2018 to over 50 million units by 2025, taking up 6% of the total OLED market (825 million panels) and 11% of the total flexible OLED market (476 million).

IHS sees fast growth ahead for the market, but the analysts say that smartphone brands are cautious about launching foldable smartphones because the phones should be durable enough for repeated folding and thin and light enough even when supporting a larger display and battery.

IHS Markit says that high demand for OLED TV panels has enabled LG Display to increase its asking price, and the average selling price (ASP) of OLED TVs have risen from $695.47 in Q1 2018 to $712.48 in the second quarter. IHS expects LGD to increase the price to $731.9 in Q3 and $729.96 in the Q4 2018.

IHS estimates that LG Display will ship a total of 2.54 million OLED TV panels in 2018 - much less than what was claimed in a surprising post in Korea last week (3.7 - 3.8 million). IHS sees the market growing to 3.6 million units in 2019, 6 million units in 2020 and 9.35 million units in 2022.

IHS posted an interesting article which details a new backplane technology that Apple is developing. So-called Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide (LTPO) combines both LTPS TFTs and Oxide TFTs (IGZO, Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide). LTPO is applicable for both OLED and LCD displays.

In LTPO, the switching circuits are using LTPS while the driving TFTs will use IGZO materials. This could lead to a power saving of around 5-15% compared to the currently-used LTPS backplanes. The main drawback of LTPO, however, is that the IGZO TFTs are larger and so the display density may be compromised. IHS says that Apple may introduce this into future iPhones - but it also says that LTPO will be limited to low-density displays at first which is a bit confusing.

According to IHS, flexible AMOLED shipments reached 157.6 million units in 2018 - about 38.9% of the total AMOLED market (rigid + flexible). Flexible OLEDs will grow at a much faster rate than rigid OLEDs, and shipments will exceed those of rigid OLEDs by 2020 (335.7 million units). In 2022 over 400 million flexible AMOLED panels will be produced, compared to around 340 million rigid AMOLEDs.

IHS sees demand for flexible OLEDs by smartphone brands that want to diffrentite their products using curved displays and full-screen ones. Foldable displays are also expected to be a key technology for mobile devices in the foreseeable future.

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%.

IHS estimates that a notch-design increases the production cost of a smartphone display (whether LCD or OLED) by more than 20%. A notch-type 5.9" OLED (like in the iPhone X) costs $29, 25% higher than the cost of a regular 5.8" OLED.

IHS explains that cutting the notch results in yield loss, which is the main driver of the higher costs (the panel itself, of course, is also larger before cutting the notch in the comparison IHS makes). In theory, cutting a plastic OLED is easier than the glass-based LCDs, and IHS forecasts that manufacturing costs for notch OLEDs will fall far more rapidly than the costs of notch LCDs.

IHS says that smartphone makers are expected to increase their adoption of under-the-display fingerprint sensors. In 2018, 9 million such smartphones will be sold, but the market will grow extremely quickly and will reach over 100 million unit in 2019. By 2022, over 300 million such phones will ship.

Under-the-display sensors are currently only applicable to OLED displays. Chinese phones makers (such as Vivo and Huawei) already started shipping the first phones to adopt this technology. IHS estimates that looking forward, the market will be led by Samsung and Chinese smartphone makers such as Vivo, Huawei and Xiaomi.

IHS estimates that AMOLED shipments (by area) reached 5 million square meters in 2017, and the market will grow to 22.4 million sqm by 2024.

Growth in 2017 was driven by a doubling of AMOLED TV panel area shipments (from 800,000 sqm in 2016 to 1.6 million in 2017). By 2024, IHS expects OLED TV shipments to reach 12.5 million units.

IHS Markit says that demand for Oxide-TFT backplanes has surged over 100% in 2017, led by both LCDs and AMOLED TVs. The demand is expected to continue its growth although at lower rates and will reach 6.8 million billion sqm in 2020 (up from 1.7 billion sqm in 2017).

OLED TV Oxide-TFT backplanes shipments (all from LG Display) grew 106% in 2017 while demand for LCD panels (mostly produced by Sharp) grew 98%, mostly led by Apple's adoption of Oxide-TFT LCDs in its iPads and notebooks.