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2022 OLED KOREA CONFERENCE will be held at Shilla Stay in Busan from April 6-8. From smartphones business, Samsung Display is expanding into IT OLED business to products such as notebooks and tablet PCs. Samsung Display Vice President, Yongsuk Choi will kick off the conference with the theme, OLED Innovation for Post-Pandemic Era in his keynote.

Hyeon Woo Lee, Senior Vice President of LG Display will deliver the keynote on the ever-evolving large OLED for TVs and OLED.EX. Commonly know for growth in smartphone-oriented mobile products, the OLED market achieved impressive growth in the TV and IT markets in 2021. Choong Hoon Yi of UBI Research will give an overview of OLED performance in 2021 and market forecasts by application products. He will discuss investment prospects and business direction of panel makers and detail China’s rapidly growing OLED investment and business analysis.

UBI Research estimates that shipments of small-sizes (under 10-inch) AMOLED displays reached 746 million in 2021, up 34.4% from 2020 (555 million units). UBI says the market was driven by increased Apple iPhone sales and increased adoption of foldable OLED panels.

In terms of revenues, the market increased by 43.9% from $26.5 billion in 2020 to $38.1 billion in 2021.

UBI Research estimates that Samsung Display will increase its foldable OLED panel production from ~8 million units in 2021 to 18 million panels in 2022. This will enable Samsung Electronics to increase its foldable phone shipments from around 7 million in 2021 to over 14 million in 2022.

As SDC's foldable panel capacity increases, the company will also have to increase is foldable OLED module production capacity, and the UTG glass processing capacity at Dowoo insys. subsidiary.

UBI Research estimates that Samsung Display shipped 124.76 million smartphone AMOLED panels in Q3 2021, an increase of 24.6% from the previous quarter, enjoying high demand from Apple for its iPhone 13 series.

SDC produced and shipped 62.63 million rigid panels (or about 50% of its total shipments), for low-end and mid-tier smartphones. Flexible OLED shipments were 58.2 million units (out of which 39.31 million went to Apple), and foldable OLEDs shipments reached 3.93 million units.

UBI Research estimates that sales of 10" and larger OLEDs (used in tablets, laptops, monitors - and also TVs) reached $2.95 billion in the first half of 2021, up from $1.22 billion a year before. Shipments reached 10.29 million units.

In the first half of 2021, 3.4 million OLED TV panels were shipped. The rest of the units (6.89 million) were of displays used in laptops and tablets, mostly.

UBI Research says that the market for medium to large OLED displays (10-inch and up, used in IT and TV applications) has risen 156% in Q1 2021 compared the Q1 2020. Total sales reached $1.45 billion in the quarter.

Most of the growth comes from TV and laptop displays. LG Display produced 1.6 million OLED TV panels in the quarter, while sales for laptops reached 1.1 million panels. TV panels accounted for the majority of sales (as average panel price is much higher) - 81.6% of the market.

UBI Research says that the OLED materials market will grow 17% in 2021 to $1.52 billion USD (up from $1.3 billion in 2020).

Korean OLED makers are the main customers for OLED materials, with 74.3% of the total market, while China producers represent 25.7% of the market. Samsung Display is still the leading OLED materials customers with 45.9% of the total market, LGD is second with 28.5% and BOE third with 13.7%.

UBI Research estimates that Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) will hold a 80% market share in the foldable OLED panel cover material market. The rest of the market will adopt Polyimide films.

According to UBI, Samsung Display will only use UTG in its future foldable OLED displays. Transparent Polyimide films will be used in budget models, or for displays larger than 10" in size. BOE and CSoT currently use Polyimide films in foldable OLEDs, but both companies are looking to adopt UTG in future displays.

UBI Research says that shipments of OLED displays reached 577.88 million in 2020, up 3.7% from 2019. Total OLED revenues in 2020 increased only 0.7% to $32.68 billion as average panel price was lower in 2020 (mostly in the smartphone market).

The main growth in the OLED industry in 2020 came from smartwatches and TVs markets. Smartphone and tablet display shipments actually decreased in 2020. In 2020, new market emerged - automotive displays, laptop displays and foldable devices.

UBI Research says that the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with US sanctions against Huawei are lowering demand for OLED smartphone panels. UBI estimates that in Q3 2020 113 million OLED smartphone panels were shipped, 17.9% lower than in Q3 2019.

Even though Apple is expanding its OLED adoption, this is not enough to offset the decreased demand from the COVID-19 and Huawei sanctions, and UBI estimates that Q4 2019 will also be lower by around 18% from last year.