A number of news stories these last few days have served notice to the Korean display industry. UBI Research sounded alarm bells by talking up Chinese manufacturers’ encroachment into the smartphone OLED panel business, and the Korean government has spent a few days strategizing on tech innovation and investment in the future of Korea’s technology industries, mostly around AI, semiconductors, and displays.
I remain bullish on the chances of Chinese firms being able to do the OLED market what they did to the LCD market. Particularly, if there continues to be a lack of demand or market impetus until the latter part of 2024. There’s plenty of time during a period of slack demand for Chinese manufacturers to establish their processes, and gain traction for their OLED products.
On the other hand, while one of Display Daily’s reporters was excited, maybe a little overexcited, by the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Korean government is planning to invest to position its display industry for MicroLED and NanoLED display development, it’s probably worth pointing out that the Chinese government can easily match that investment, and surpass it if it so chooses.
There’s also the question of how we account for the investment in MicroLED technology by Apple and Meta as they pursue some bizarre Holy Grail in mixed reality. If we had actual numbers, would we be surprised to know that these two tech giants may be investing more in MicroLED displays than any of the display companies? Of course, the argument could be made that Apple’s probably going to give its MicroLED manufacturing contracts to Samsung and LG before it gives it to BOE or Visionox. So, can you chalk up any Apple wins to the Korean display industry? Probably not.
That’s the existential crisis facing the Korean display industry: how does the country retain the number one position in display technology?
It may be in realizing that luminescence is not the only value in inorganic LED technologies. The opportunities in electro-optics reach into core markets for high-performance computing, AI, and high-speed communications. There may be a convergence of ideas where, despite the pronounced differences in application, the Korean display industry can see itself as part of a larger semiconductor initiative.
That may be too far into the future to consider now, in the face of fierce competition in the display industry. So, Korea, learning from the Chinese, in a post-pandemic world, should be consolidating its supply chains, bringing materials and equipment supplies as close to home as possible. The real battle for supremacy in the display industry is going to be in controlling the flow of inorganic LED materials and developing production equipment.
So, maybe all the MicroLED startups who are, for the most part, based out of North America and Europe, have their own existential crisis to look forward to or, maybe this is an ideal opportunity for consolidation. I expect M&A activity is going to heat up significantly before the end of this year. It has to because, as we have seen in China and Korea, to remain a force in the display industry you have to start thinking about building buffers and cushions, and having access to ever-greater resources.
Someone told me, as a warning I think, that the display industry is small, and that I better be nice to everyone. It isn’t small. Some people in it may like to think of it as insular and self-contained, but we may be entering a new era for the industry, one where it slots nicely into the semiconductor industry, as a subset of it, and that means growth and expansion.
