IHS Markit expects sales of flexible displays to grow from 59 million in 2016 to 139 million in 2017, an increase of 135%. After that, growth will slow, but will be steady to the end of the forecast period in 2023. In 2017, flexible displays will be 3.8% of all displays, by volume and 20% of all AMOLEDs will be flexible.
IHS believes that Apple will go ahead with the use of a flexible display which will be part of the significant boost from 2016.
“During 2016, many smartphone manufacturers have pressured display panel makers to supply them with more flexible AMOLEDs for their new smartphone designs, however, due to limited production capacity only a few players had their orders met in quantity,” said Jerry Kang, principal analyst of display research for IHS Markit. Increased supply from new LG and Samsung fabs will allow growth in 2017.
According to the latest Flexible Display Market Tracker report, smartphones took up 76% of the total flexible display supply in 2016 with the remainder taken up by smartwatches. However, flexible display supply for other applications, including tablet PCs, near-eye virtual reality devices, automotive monitors and OLED TVs, is not expected to be significant until 2023.
“Consumer device manufacturers will eventually move from conventionally designed flat and rectangular form factors to the latest curved, foldable or rollable screens, but only once their product roadmap for newer, innovative devices becomes more mature,” Kang said.
Analyst Comment
Separately, the Korea Herald quoted IHS as reporting sales of flexible OLEDs of more than $1 billion by Samsung in Q3 2016 (sales were up 68.7% on Q2). The firm is ranked as having 31.8% of the small medium market, with revenues of $3.66 billion. JDI was second with 15.4% and LG Display was third with 13.1%.
The paper quoted the value of the market as growing form $3.9 billion this year to $12.8 billion in 2018 and $18.9 billion in 2020, a CAGR of 48.6%. (BR)
