UBI - Page 8

According to UBI Research, LG shipped 140,000 OLED TV panels in Q2 2016. The company shipped 28,000 65" OLED TVs in Q2, double from the number of 65" panels it sold in Q1 2016.

UBI says that the OLED TV market has started to gain sales momentum as more companies besides LG are adopting OLEDs in their high-end TVs. LG is focusing on 65" panels as the price gap compared to high-end 65" LCDs is lower than the price gap in 55" TVs.

In past month there were dozens of reports stating that Apple will adopt an OLED display in its 2017 or 2018 iPhone and that Apple signed an agreement with SDC to be its first OLED supplier. Apple will require a huge amount of OLED displays, even if the first device will be a premium iPhone model, which will require large capacity expansion from SDC (and other suppliers that Apple will probably need to sign up).

According to UBI Research, Apple's decision to adopt OLED displays in its iPhones will result in $13 billion of production equipment orders by 2020. The capacity required for Apple will take up 47% of the global equipment market for 6-Gen flexible OLEDs ($28.5 billion in the next 5 years, according to UBI).

UBI Research says that the total OLED market reached 91.3 million units in Q1 2016, and Samsung Display produced about 86.7 million panels (95% of the total OLED market).

UBI further estimates that Samsung produced 12.1 million flexible OLEDs for its Edge-type phones (14% of its total OLED shipments).

UBI Research's president Lee Choong-hoon says that Apple is set to adopt OLEDs in its phones, and the company will release an iPhone with a curved OLED display in 2018. The curved iPhone will make up for 30% of total iPhone sales (about 100 million units) - but this will rise to 80% to 2020.

In fact, by 2021, Apple couple be the largest OLED customer - buying more OLEDs than Samsung Electronics. Samsung is currently using OLEDs in about 70% of its smartphones.

UBI Research says that the OLED materials market is set to grow at a CAGR of 46% from 2016 to 2021, to reach $4.3 billion. In 2016 itself OLED emitters will record $677 million - a 16% increase from 2015.

This fast growth will mostly come from AMOLED smartphones and OLED TVs. In 2016 Samsung and LG will buy the majority of those materials (about 94%) - but going forward more producers, especially in China, will join the market.

According to UBI Research, the market for OLED emitting materials grew 17% from 2014 to 2015. Universal Display (the top supplier in terms of revenues), Dow Chemical and LG Chem saw a decrease in sales while Novaled, Idemitsu Kosan and Samsung SDI saw improved revenues.

Samsung Display is the largest OLED producer by far, and so when it changes suppliers it changes the whole market. UBI says that in 2015 Idemitsu Kosan, the second supplier in terms of revenue started delivering blue fluorescent emitters to Samsung Display, and also enjoyed the ramp-up in OLED TV production by LGD.

UBI estimates that the AMOLED market will reach a record $15 billion in revenues in 2016 - an increase of about 40% over 2015. Unit shipments will rise 16% to reach 270 million panels in 2016 (up from 230 million in 2015).

UBI expects the AMOLED market to grow with a CAGR of 46% between 2016 and 2020, to reach $67 billion.

During the OLED World Summit, an analyst from UBI gave an interesting presentation, showing the company's view of the current status of the OLED TV industry, and their OLED market forecasts for upcoming years.

So first of all, we have LG and Samsung. LGD has obviously been successful in launching WOLED OLED TVs, and scaling up to mass production has been achieved. LG is also hopeful that solution processing will enable them to produce RGB-structured OLEDs efficiently. LG is collaborating with Merck and Espon on printing technologies.

Update: originally we posted that the market for solution-based OLEDs will be $395 million in 2020, but the correct UBI is estimate is much higher - $2.4 billion

UBI Research estimates that solution based OLED processes could reduce the price of a 55" OLED TV panel by as much as 43" compared to the currently used WRGB evaporation based process.

UBI further says that solution-based OLEDs will be cheaper to produce than LCD panels. The company estimates that companies will start mass producing solution-based OLED TVs in 2018, and the market of solution-based panels will reach $2.4 billion by 2020.

UBI research says that Q2 2015 was a record quarter for the AMOLED market, with 56 million AMOLEDs shipped - an increase of 35% over the previous quarter (41 million panels) and 19% over Q2 2014 (47 million panels).

In terms of revenue, those 56 million panels generated $2.8 billion in revenue. The largest producer is still Samsung of course, and the main reason for the higher volume is the shipment of AMOLEDs to Chinese mobile phone markets. LG Display's flexible AMOLED used in Apple's Watch also contributed to the record quarter.