What They Say
DSCC published its latest results and forecasts for tablets using OLED, miniLED and regular LCD tablets. The firm differentiates OLED and miniLED as ‘advanced tablets’. Advanced tablets were up 362% from last year in Q1 at 2.43 million, although down on Q4 2020 as strong demand for the Apple iPad Pro 12.9″ continued to see strong demand. Samsung also launched new OLED-based tablets and that meant that miniLED fell from 74% to 56% on a unit basis and from 87% to 71% on a revenue basis.
Overall, the tablet market was up 1% on Q4, but was down 28% YoY to 49 million and the market is expected to be down on an annual basis in Q2 and from 2021 to 2026 in units (-2% CAGR) and revenue (-4% CAGR). For 2022, DSCC expects tablets to be down 8%, although Advanced Tablets will rise by 22%, rising from 3% to 4% of the market. The article discusses Apple’s plans for the iPad Pro in some detail but suggests that Apple will stick to the same display design while trying to push costs down.
From 2025, the firm expects OLEDs to take a dominant share of the Advanced Tablet market. Apple is expected to increase its range with an 11″ miniLED display. OLEDs will see boosts from tandem stacks, variable refresh, high efficiency blue emitters, lower costs from depreciated G6 fabs and new IGZO G8.5 fabs and new foldable form factors. Apple is expected to continue its dominance in the tablet market and will eventually release 11″ and 12.9″ OLED-based units in 2024.
Tandem stacks can double efficiency and brightness, increase lifetime by 4X, reduce burn-in and reduce power consumption by 30%, DSCC said.
What We Think
When I was doing market forecasts, I avoided forecasting brand shares. However the tablet market really is dominated by very few models so it may be more amenable to brand forecasting which can emerge from modelling the main models. (BR)
