Omdia (IHS) - Page 10

IHS says that the OLED industry is now entering a huge capacity-growth phase, and IHS estimates that the AMOLED production equipment market will reach $9.5 billion in revenues in 2017.

Almost half of that amount will go to TFT backplane equipment ($4.4 billion in 2017), while the organic layer deposition market will reach 2.2 billion and the encapsulation tools market will reach $1.2 billion. IHS estimates that Canon Tokki is the leader in OLED deposition equipment, and has a market share of over 50%.

A few days ago IHS said that they see the flexible display market reaching 139 million units in 2017 - an increase of 135% compared to 2016. IHS now reveals that in Q3 2016 SDC flexible AMOLED revenue reached over $1 billion for the first time ever.

According to IHS, SDC has a market share of 31.8% from the total display market, followed by Japan Display (15.4%) and LGD (13.1%). SDC's good performance was mostly accredit to its OLED business, and specifically its flexible OLED business.

IHS says that flexible display shipments (mostly OLEDs) will reach 139 million units in 2017 (or 3.8% of the total display market) - an increase of 135% compared to 2016 (59 million units). In 2023 IHS sees shipments of 560 million flexible displays.

In 2017, flexible OLEDs will comprise 20% of the total OLED display market. The growth in flexible OLED adoption will be lead by smartphones - and especially Apple's next-gen iPhone. In 2016 76% of flexible OLEDs ended up in smartphones - and the remainder were used in smartwatches (mostly in Apple's Watch, probably). Next generation flexible OLED applications, including tablets, VR devices, automotive displays and OLED TVs are not expected to be significant until 2023.

A post on a Korean site (Pulse News) quotes an unnamed SDC official that stated that SDC will reach its goal of 400 million AMOLED panels in 2016, and aims to ship more than 550 million AMOLED panels in 2017 - a 35% increase. SDC is aiming to meet demand for OLED panels from Chinese phones makers (and, probably, Apple too).

Pulse News also presents the charts above, sourced from IHS. The company sees revenues from OLED shipments rising from $10.6 billion in 2016 to $11.8 billion in 2017. IHS shipments estimates are 455 million for 2017. This is rather a low estimate compared to other reports we've seen, as IHS seems to be forecasting sharp decreases in average panel price as the massive increases in capacity do not translate into much higher revenues.

IHS estimates that the active-matrix small and medium display market will reach $43.4 billion in 2016, up slightly from 2015. This includes AMOLED, LCD and E Ink displays.

According to IHS, AMOLED revenues will reach $14.3 billion - surpassing a-Si LCD revenue ($14 billion) - and almost reaching LTPS LCD display revenues ($14.7 billion). a-Si LCD revenues are on the decline - and IHS sees a-Si LCD as a soon-to-be legacy display technology. AMOLED is expected to grow quickly, mostly due to demand for flexible OLEDs.

IHS performed a tear down of the Oculus Rift consumer edition VR headset. IHS says that the component cost is $200 (the price of the headset is $600). The most expensive component is the displays - the dual 3.1" 1200x1080 VR AMOLED displays cost $69 together.

Those displays are optimized for VR applications - with a higher refresh rate than the AMOLED displays used in mobile phones (90Hz). The same displays are also used in the HTV Vive and the OSVR HMD.

Last week IHS said that OLED display penetration rate in mobile phones will grow from 13% in 2015 to 34% in 2021, mostly due to the adoption of OLEDs by China-based phone makers (I would assume Apple's OLED iPhones will also help).

IHS now releases some more details on their mobile OLED market forecast. IHS says that mobile OLED shipments, which totaled 257 million panels in 2015 will almost double by 2017 - to reach 455 million units. Shipments in 2016 will reach 367 million panels.

IHS says that the OLED display penetration rate in mobile phones will grow from 13% in 2015 to 34% in 2021, mostly due to the adoption of OLEDs by China-based phone makers. For some reason IHS does not mention Apple - but if OLEDs start to appear in iPhone models, it will have a drastic effect on OLED penetration.

IHS says that following the success of OLEDs, the market for LED BLUs in mobile phones will start declining - at about 2.6% per year in the same period.

According to IHS, demand for flexible displays is set to increase as the popularity of wearable and mobile devices with flexible displays increase. IHS says that the market will be around $3.7 billion in 2016 - and this will grow to $15.5 billion in 2022.

In 2020 flexible displays will comprise 13% of the total display market. While currently the only devices that use flexible displays are phones and watches, this will expand to include tablets, near-eye VR devices, automotive and OLED TVs. IHS is counting both flexible OLEDs and E Ink displays.

In its latest forecasts, IHS expects 830,000 OLED TVs to ship in 2016. The market will grow to 1.4 million in 2017 and 5.8 million in 2020. IHS lowered its OLED TV forecasts as it does not see Samsung returning to the OLED TV market, and because of limited mass production capacity.

The previous IHS forecast, made earlier in 2016, predicted 8.5 million OLED TVs in 2020 - so the new forecast is 32% lower.