I have spent my adult life split between Europe and North America seeing display technologies come and go. I have seen these regions struggle to get a foothold in the cut throat display industry without any measurable success. In the end Asia won out over everyone else. Now they are fighting it out between themselves.
This is not to say that Europe and North America are not playing any role in the display industry. In both regions we find important players that contribute significantly to display manufacturing. Just think of Merck in Germany and Corning in the USA. Both are world leading suppliers of display materials and components, and they are not the only ones. The key message is that actual display manufacturing is concentrated in a relatively small part of the whole world. Of course there are some exceptions (Kent Display for example among others) but they are all small and focus on niche markets and applications.
The last large display industry outside the Asian Display Center is most likely the CRT manufacturing in India and even this is going downhill with the rise of the LCD TV. I am not dismissing the projection industry with DLP and Laser technologies, however compared to the LCD industry they are also smaller and specialized markets.
I have witnessed many discussions on why it is this way and I do not want to add my own opinion here, I am just acknowledging the facts. So we have all displays coming from a relatively small region and from a relatively small number of companies. As a result, displays are becoming more and more similar and display performance is playing less of a role in differentiation for most device makers.
The price of the finished product determines how much will be spent on the display panel. Availability of new technology is determined by production capacity and demands a premium. Other than that, tell me how much you want to spend and I tell you what you can get is the way the market works. Of course if you are working in that particular field of product development you will tell me that it is way more complex than that! I agree wholeheartedly and beg your forgiveness; I am trying to make a point by simplifying very complex and ever shifting market conditions in the display industry.
What does it mean for consumers?
But what is the consequence for the consumer? I grew up in a world where Sony made really good TVs. That meant the design of the CRT, the electronics and the outside looks. Today, you can brand your TV any way you want based on the same design, display panel and electronics. Consequently the value of the brand should be going down, even though we have not seen this happening, so far. Samsung and Apple still rule the smartphone world but the lead is slowly diminishing.
However, the importance of the display performance for the market impact of a device like a new TV or smartphone for example is diminishing. The same goes for the differences in the devices sold in different parts of the world. Gone are the times where a device worked in part of the world and not in others (well, mostly, Man. Ed – there are still a lot of regional issues in firmware and even in tuners in TVs – Man. Ed.). Consumers will have the same display experience regardless of whether they are living in Europe, Russia, Africa, America, down under or any other part of the world.
What does this all mean for the display industry in the coming decades? We will be busy with the introduction of the OLED or other LED displays, flexibility will play a role but what comes after that? From my perspective the golden age of electronic display technology development is coming to an end. Instead of new technologies presented at Display Week we are discussing life time of the blue OLED and clever implementation schemes and making flexible displays. These are all implementation issues that need to be addressed via a slow process of material and process development.
Really new ideas are basically nonexistent. Just compare today to the time where LCD, PDP, FED, LED, and other technologies were fighting CRT for a chance go mainstream. Since then we have added OLED as a real competitor. Other than that it looks like we are at the end of the line of an ever shrinking world of display technologies.
– Norbert Hildebrand
