Omdia (IHS) - Page 8

IHS Markit announced that it is lowering its smartphone AMOLED market forecasts, following lower-than-expected iPhone X sales (mainly because of its high price). IHS says that OLED makers will need to lower production costs of both rigid and flexible AMOLED panels in order to compete with lower priced high-end LCDs.

IHS expected flexible OLED shipments to reach 167 million panels in 2018 - up 34% compared to 2017, but a much lower amount then the company's previous estimates. Total (rigid + flexible) OLED shipments in 2018 will grow 14% to 453 million.

IHS Markit says that OLED materials (emitters + stack materials) revenues reached $355 million in the second half of 2017, up 20% from the first half of the year. This followed a year and a half of stagnation in revenues (sale volume increased, but this was offset by price reductions).

IHS expects the OLED materials market to continue growing in the near future, and revenues in the 2020 will reach about $1.5 billion. The growth will be driven by further Apple OLED adoption and increased OLED TV production.

IHS estimates that Korean OLED makers (Samsung and LGD) will halt their OLED capacity expansion in 2018, but will resume adding capacity in 2019. Meanwhile China-based makers will continue their fast expansion plans in 2018-2020, and total AMOLED production capacity in China will grow from 228,000 sqm in 2016 to 8.3 million sqm in 2020, that's a CAGR of 145%!.

Interestingly IHS sees no real OLED production in Japan at least until 2020.

IHS Markit says that flexible AMOLED shipments more than tripled in 2017, and revenues reached $12 billion (up from $3.5 billion in 2016). Rigid OLED revenues decreased by 14%. In 2018 flexible OLED revenues will reach around $23 billion, and rigid OLEDs will also increase slightly to about $11 billion.

In 2016 most flexible OLED were used in a curved form factor (edge-type phones), but in 2017 about half of flexible OLED displays were used in a flat form factor (such as in the iPhone X).

According to IHS, global OLED TV shipments grew 130% from November 2016 to November 2017 to reach a new monthly record of 270,000 units. The falling prices of 55" 4K OLEDs bring them within budget of a greater number of holiday shoppers, says IHS.

IHS estimates that in 2017 over 1.4 million OLED TVs were shipped. LG Electronics is the clear market leader with a 92% market share. The growth of 65" OLED TVs (157% year-over-yera) is greater than the growth of 55" OLEDs (123%).

IHS analyst David Hsieh posted a very interesting article that discuss the global OLED industry with a special focus on China. Samsung is expected to retain its lead in this market - and will more than double its capacity between 2017 to 2022.

In five years (2022), Samsung will have a capacity to produce 16.6 million square meters of RGB OLED displays, or 52% of the global capacity. SDC will be followed by LG Display (11%), Tianma (6%), CSoT (5%), Visionox (4%) and EverDisplay (4%).

IHS says that SDC increased its lead in the smartphone display market, reaching a market share of 42.7% in Q3 2017. Samsung is followed by JDI (12.5%), LG Display (10.1%), BOE (8.8%) and Sharp (7.7%). The smartphone display market totaled $11.8 billion in Q3, a new quarterly high.

IHS says that OLED smartphone revenue reached a record high in the quarter - $5.11 billion (up 32.4% from the $3.86 billion in Q2 2017). SDC's market share in the OLED smartphone display market is 98.5% ($5.03 billion). IHS actually expects SDC's market share to increase slightly to 98.8% in Q4 2017.

IHS says that demand for flexible AMOLED displays is growing at a slower pace than expected - and also at a slower rate than its supply, and as a result the demand in 2018 will be 44% lower than the supply.

IHS says that flexible OLED capacity will grow 100% in 2018 (to reach 4.4 million square meters), but demand will only grow 70% (to 2.4 million square meters). IHS says that the high price of flexible OLEDs caused smartphone makers to opt for either rigid (glass-based) OLEDs or LCDs in their 2018 models. IHS estimates that the price gap between a flexible OLED and a rigid OLED on the same 6-Gen line is about 50%.

According to IHS, production costs of 55" 4K OLED TVs have declined 55% from the beginning of 2015 to Q2 2017. IHS estimates that it costs $582 for LGD to produce a 55" OLED panel, and the price will continue to drop to reach $242 in 2021.

In early 2017 the cost of a 55" OLED TV is about 2.5 times the production cost of an equivalent 4K LCD TV panel. The price gap has narrowed as it was 4.3 times back in Q1 2015. The price in material cost is currently around 1.7 times - but other factors such as yields and depreciation increase LGD's production costs.

IHS Markit says that global AMOLED production capacity is set to grow from 11.9 million square meters to 50.1 million sqm in 2022 - that's a 320% growth in 5 years. Samsung and LGD will remain the market leaders and Korea will have a market share of 71% in 2022 (down from 93% in 2017). China-based OLED makers will have a market share of 26% in 2022 (up from 5% in 2017).

IHS says that the majority of OLED capacity will still be used to produce RGB (direct-emission) OLEDs in 2022. RGB OLED production capacity will grow from 8.9 million sqm in 2017 to 31.9 million sqm in 2022. WOLED (WRGB) OLED TV panel capacity will grow from 3 million sqm in 2017 to 18.2 million sqm in 2022.