May 2024

Japan-based Sharp Corp, an LCD display industry pioneer, announced that it will stop all of its large-area LCD production by the end of 2024. Sharp's Osaka-based factory was the last LCD TV fab in Japan, and it will be turned into a data center run by its subsidiary Sakai Display Products Corp.

Sharp says that its current midterm plans are strengthen its home appliances and office equipment businesses, by incorporating AI technologies. It also plans to sell its semiconductor business. Sharp says it will focus its remaining small/medium LCD display business on the automotive and VR sectors.

The display industry's premier event, Displayweek, is over. We will now collect our notes, thoughts, photos and images and will share it all in the coming days. In the meantime, we'd like to detail some initial impressions.

Generally speaking, it seems as if the display industry is going through a phase of relatively little innovation, especially with the mature LCD and OLED industry segments. While it has been a very busy week, and attendance at the event seems high, the number of actual demonstrations and prototypes was not stellar and compared to previous years, the booths were smaller and some companies skipped the event this year or preferred to only show their latest displays in private settings. Some thoughts we have:

LG Display developed a new OLED microdisplay (OLEDoS) that achieves a brightness of 10,000 nits. This development is presented at SID DisplayWeek 2024. 

To achieve this high brightness, LG Display's research team used newly-developed high performance OLED materials, and also used a micro lens array (MLA) to expand the light output from the device. 

In early 2019, LG launched the world's first rollable OLED device - a TV that rolls into its base. The 65" Signature OLED TV R had three viewing options - full view, line view and zero view, and was heralded as a radical new TV form factor. The OLED TV R had a high price tag (around $100,000) and obviously never attracted a large customer base.

LG Electronics now decided to stop selling the TV, and not release a new edition. It actually disbanded its small dedicated production line, and will now focus on other high-end premium TVs instead, such as the transparent Signature OLED T TV. 

Omdia says that shipments of OLED displays in tablets are set to grow in the future, rising from around 3.8 million in 2023 to 35 million in 2031. 2024 will see a 315% jump in shipments as Apple starts to adopt OLEDs in its tablets.

Interestingly, Omdia sees an increase in adoption of a 'hybrid OLED' structure (reaching a market share of 85.1% in 2031), which the company defines as a glass-based OLED with a thin-film encapsulation. This hybrid design is lower in cost compared to a flexible OLEDs, while still achieving high performance and a thin design. 

Samsung Electronics started selling OLED monitors in 2023, and one year later, according to IDC, it leads the global OLED monitor market, with a 34.7% market share by revenues. It also is the leader in shipments with a share of 28.3%.

Samsung's first monitor was the 34" OLED G8, a QD-OLED gaming monitor. Since then Samsung released several new OLED monitors, and it's likely that the OLED Monitor market is set for fast growth ahead. 

UBI Research says that it expects the total shipments of OLED emitting materials to reach 131 tons in 2024. The market will grow to 177 tons by 2028, a CAGR of 7.9%. In terms of revenues, the market will grow from $2.4 billion in 2024 to $2.7 billion in 2028.

UBI says that demand for OLED displays is on the rise, fueled by increased adoption in entry-level phones and IT products. 

Omdia says that OLED monitor shipments rose 415% in 2023, and the trend will continue in 2024, with a 123% increase over 2023. Total shipments in 2024 will reach 1.84 million units, driven mostly by Samsung Electronics and LG Display.

The main market for OLED Monitors is high-end gaming, especially esports. The entire monitor market has seen a downturn in 2023 and 2023, but Omdia says the market is expected to recover slowly in 2024. 

As OLED display makers are racing to launch IT AMOLED displays (for laptops, monitors and tablets), there has been recent reports that TCL CSoT has decided to build a 8-Gen AMOLED line, in a 63 billion Yuan (about $8.7 billion USD) investment.

TCL CSoT issued a statement that says that this report is inaccurate, and the company has not made a decision yet and does not have an investment plan. 

Yesterday Apple officially announced its 2024 iPad Pro devices, Apple's first tablets with AMOLED displays. There are two devices, a 11" model (1668x2420) and a 13" model (2064x2752). Both OLEDs offer 120Hz and 1600 nits peak brightness - and a tandem architecture. Apple brands these displays as Ultra Retina Tandem OLEDs.

The new iPad Pro 2024 devices will ship next week, starting at $999 for the 11" model. Some of the models offer a matte finish (nano-texture glass coating).