The OLED Association published some interesting forecasts for OLED shares in the rapidly developing smartphone market. The Association forecasts that, over the forecast period to 2021, LG Display will reach a peak of 22% compared to Samsung in 2020, but will drop back to 21% in 2021. These two companies will dominate the supply of AMOLEDs for this application over the period.
The OLED-A sees LGs share against Samsung in smartphone OLEDs peaking in 2020. Click on image for higher resolution.
The group also published data from IHS that identifies the likely suppliers of OLEDs to a range of smartphone brands. The report covers the last couple of years and as LG Display has not been in the merchant market, it is not included, although we would expect that if LG can ramp up its output as the OLED-A forecasts, that will change.
IHS sees Samsung and Chinese OLED suppliers as the key suppliers to Chinese smartphone makers. Click for higher resolution.
Analyst Comment
As we have reported, one of the problems that will limit the supply of OLEDs is industry capacity and this is limited partly by the availability of investment funds, but also by the availability of equipment. Canon is the key supplier of the photolithography systems needed for the complex backplanes needed in smartphone OLEDs and currently the only company that has shipped equipment. Canon has only a limited capacity to make such machines and although there are others that say that they can make such machines, it’s a big risk if there turn out to be problems. Eventually, that is bound to be solved, but it’s a big risk to buy from unproven equipment suppliers. (BR)
