Universal Display Corporation (UDC) - Page 21

My first meeting at SID was with Universal Display's Janice Mahon. UDC had some pretty interesting updates for us at SID, and some nice exhibits in the booth as well - only OLED lighting panels, but quite interesting ones. This post will be rather long...

Update: Here's the complete list of OLED related posts and notes from SID 2012

So, SID 2012 is now over. Personally it was a very good show, even though I hear from many exhibitors that it was slow compared to past years. There were a lot of companies showing OLED displays, lighting panels and related products, and it seems that OLEDs are starting to become mainstream. I do plan to post in-depth posts with interesting details of my talks with various OLED companies, but in the meantime, here's my own "best of SID" list.

Back in June 2011 Universal Display announced that some of its patents have been invalidated in Japan by the Japanese Patent Office (JPO). The company gave an update today regarding two patents. On one patent (#3992929), the Japanese High Court acknowledged the validity of certain claimed inventions in the patent, but confirmed the JPO's conclusion to invalidate the broadest claims. UDC says it intends to appeal to the Japanese Supreme court. UDC's Shares are dropping around 10% now.

Regarding the second patent (#4511024), the JPO issued a decision upholding the validity of certain claimed inventions but invalidating the broadest claims. UDC believes this decision was erroneous and they intend to appeal to the Japanese High Court.

Universal Display's management presented in an investor conference (Deutsche Bank's Clean Tech, Utilities and Power Conference). They gave an interesting introduction to the company and its business. In the Q&A, Sid Rosenblatt, the company's CFO says that currently their green PHOLED emitter is used in only two products: the Motorola Droid RAZR and the Sony Vita. This is set to change and they expect more products in the second half of 2012.

This explains why UDC's first quarter revenues were lower than expected - while red emitters sales were up 150% over last year, the green emitter sales have dropped, due to low Vita sales and high volume purchases in the previous quarter.

Universal Display reported their financial results for Q1 2012: revenues were $12.6 million, and the net loss was $1.2 million. This is a surprise as most analysts expected a profit, and the stock price is dropping around 10%. In Q1 2011 the company reported $9.6 million in revenue.

The company hosted a conference call after releasing the results. First of all we learned that Samsung will pay $30 million in licence fees in 2012. The agreement states that Samsung pays twice a year, in Q2 and Q4. The license fees will grow in 2013.

Universal Display announced it will supply phosphorescent OLED materials to the Fraunhofer Institute which will use them to make efficient white OLED lighting panels. The two companies signed a two-year agreement under which COMEDD will develop and produce OLED panels "for market development". The upcoming panels will use UDC's all-phosphorescent solution.

The Fraunhofer is already producing and shipping OLED lighting panels, including structured and transparent ones (we posted our on-hands review just yesterday). The Fraunhofer does not plan to mass produce their panels, they are just meant to help interested people experiment with this exciting new technology. Of course in the future the Fraunhofer may license or spin-off its production technology.

Lumiotec released an interesting article that discusses the company's Multi-Photon Emission (MPE) stacked device structure and how it helps to achieve high luminance and long lifetime, their light out-coupling and encapsulation technologies and the company's mass production process. The paper also includes a discussion on the development of their next generation panel which uses phosphorescent materials provided by Universal Display Corporation to improve the efficiency.

Here's our own review of Lumiotec's Hanger and Vanity OLED lamps, and here's our review of the company's first-gen OLED lighting panel. Here are a couple of videos showing Lumiotec's panels and lamps:

Novaled wants to raise $200 million on the NASDAQ or the NYSE, and today the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released the company's filing, which reveales some interesting details. Novaled is selling its doping materials (produced by BASF), licenses OLED technology and also offers R&D services

First of all, here's a summary of the company's financial statements (all in Euro): in 2009 the company generated revenues of €6.4 million and a loss of €1.3 million, in 2010 revenues of €6.8 million and a loss of €2.3 million and in 2011 €17.4 in revenues and a profit of €1.2 million.

Universal Display and LG Display have renewed their commercial supply agreement again. The current agreement will run for 6 months, until June 30, 2012. The companies are still negotiating a long term agreement. LG is using UDC's PHOLED materials in AMOLED displays, and pay them for the chemical sales and a license fee.

UDC signed the original agreement with LGD (then LG.Philips) back in May 2007. In August 2011 UDC finally signed a long-term agreement with Samsung, and hopefully they will sign one with LG Display soon, hopefully before LG's 55" OLED TVs start shipping.

Universal Display reported their financial results for Q4 2011. The company had $18.7 million in revenue (up 73% from Q4 2010's $10.8 million), with net income of $5.7 million. In Q4 material sales reached $10.8 million and royalties were $5.4 million. For the whole of 2011, UDC reports $61.3 million in revenue (up 101% over 2010's $30.5 million) and $3.2 million in net income. The company was cash flow positive in 2011 - with $16.4 million from operation activities and they have $346 million in cash.