Universal Display Corporation (UDC) - Page 17

Universal Display announced their financial results for Q3 2013 - $32.8 in revenues (up from $12.5 in Q2 2012) and a net income of $5.5 million. Those excellent results are "directly attributable to the commercial adoption of its red emitter, green emitter and green host materials".

Looking forward, UDC says that the "OLED industry is poised for robust growth as product roadmaps are further developed, new manufacturing capacity ramps and new display and lighting manufacturers enter the market". They raised their guidance for 2013 revenues to be $142-$144 million (the previous estimate was $110-$125 million).

In May 2012, the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) issued a decision regarding Universal Display's patent #4511024 - they upheld the validity of certain claimed inventions but invalidated the broadest claims. Universal Display appealed to the Japanese High Court and now they announced that the court reversed the JPO's broad claims invalidation.

The matter was remanded back to the JPO for further consideration consistent with the IP High Court’s ruling. The company who initiated the lawsuit in June 2011 was Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL).

Universal Display announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) issued a decision regarding the company's EU patent #1933395 (the EP '395 patent, which details the iridium L2MX composition), which was challenged by Sumitomo Chemical, Merck and BASF. The EPO affirmed the basic inventions and broad patent coverage but narrowed the scope of the original claims.

I'm not a lawyer so it is difficult for me to understand exactly what the narrowing of those claims mean. UDC says that they are pleased with the fact that the EPO recognized the novelty in the invention and confirmed their rights to broad claim coverage in this class of molecules through 2020. They are likely to appeal the ruling to reinstate a broader set of claims.

DisplayMate, the display testing, measurement and calibration experts just got their hands on a pre-release Galaxy Note 3 production unit, with its 5.7" Full-HD Super AMOLED display (386 PPI, PenTile). They put the unit to extensive testing (and also compared it to the Note 2). The conclusion? This is the best performing OLED display ever and it beats LCDs across the board!

The most notable advancement in this new panel is the high brightness. It can achieve 660 cd/m² in high ambient light. It's not just 55% brighter than the Note 2, it's actually the brightest display ever tested at DisplayMate. A very notable achievement for Samsung's OLEDs, which were lagging behind LCDs in brightness.

Fujifilm and imec have jointly developed a new photoresist-based OLED (and other organic semiconductors) patterning technology that can enable sub-micron patterns. The new process uses existing i-line photolithography equipment and may be a cost-effective production method for high resolution devices.

Photoresist technologies are based on photo-sensitive materials that cause photochemical reaction when exposed to light. This technology is already used for microfabrication in semiconductor production. The new process builds on Fujifilm's synthetic-organic chemistry material design technology.

Universal Display announced their financial results for Q2 2013. Revenues were $49.4 million and net income was $15.4 million - this was higher than expected and was driven by high green materials (emitter and host) sales to Samsung (green was finally adopted for the GS4). UDC says material sales grew 111% compared to Q2 2012 to $12.8 million, and royalty and license fees were up 37% (to $21.2 million, out of which $20 million were from SDC).

UDC said it expects full-year results to reach the high-end of its previous forecast - which was $110-125 million.

According to reports, Samsung is close to acquire Novaled for $200 million. This isn't really surprising - back in April 2013 it was reported that Samsung's Cheil Industries was considering to bid for Novaled. Perhaps the deal will happen soon and that's why it leaked to the press. Samsung already owns 10% of Novaled.

Novaled filed for IPO back in March 2012, aiming to raise $200 million but this IPO was never completed. In march 2013 we reported that Korea's Doosan will acquire Novaled, but in two months later the Korean company decided it will not acquire the German OLED material developer.

A few weeks ago Universal Display changed their ticker symbol from PANL to OLED. This may be good for UDC's business, but it made a mess with the popular Yahoo's investor forums (which still does not point to the correct forum from UDC's quote page). So OLED-Info comes to the rescue (sort of) - and today I launched new investor forums right here on OLED-Info.

Currently there are two forums - for Universal Display investors and for eMagin as well. If these forums are successful, maybe I'll add more forums (not just investment related ones). Happy conversing and good luck with your investments...

Universal Display held their annual shareholder meeting yesterday, during which the company announced it is changing its stock ticker from PANL to OLED (CDT's old ticker). They also launched a new web site domain at udcoled.com.

During the ASM, the company reviewed the recent business and financial developments. 2012 was a very successful year for UDC as net income more than tripled, operating income rose 141% and revenues were up 36% compared to 2011. Samsung finally adopted UDC's green PHOLED (emitter and host) for the GS4 smartphone and this is a very positive development for Universal Display.

Aixtron announced that the European Smartonics project (which aims to develop smart machines, tools and processes for the precision synthesis of materials for organic electronics) will use the company's OVPD evaporation process and roll-to-roll printing machines. Aixtron is one of the project's partners and they will develop a small R&D OVPD cluster system that will use the company's latest 200 mm R&D platform, which is optimized and qualified for manufacturing of organic photovoltaic devices.

OVPD (Organic Vapor Phase Deposition) organic material deposition technology was developed by Universal Display. Aixtron holds an exclusive license to produce OVPD manufacturing equipment.