iSupply

Just a week after telling us that the 3.7" AMOLED as used in Google's Nexus One costs $23.5, iSupply now says that the 3.7" TFT-LCD used in Motorola's Droid costs $17.75. That means that the AMOLED costs 32% more. The touchscreen overlay costs $17.75 in both the Nexus One and the Droid. This means that totally, the AMOLED touch display is only 16% more expensive than the touch TFT-LCD.

Interestingly, the iPhone 3GS' LCD is smaller than the Droid's (at 3.5") but costs more - $19.25. That means that Google's 3.7" AMOLED costs only 22% more than the smaller iPhone display.

Obviously these are just iSupply's estimates, but it's interesting anyway. 

Via Engadget 

iSupply estimates that Samsung's 3.7" WVGA AMOLED touchscreen used in Google's Nexus One phone costs $23.5. The whole bill-of-materials of the phone is $174.15. The most expensive part Qualcomm's processor ($30.5).

Google Nexus One

iSupply say that OLED TV panel shipments will enjoy a 200-times increase in the next 6 years, but will still account for a tiny portion of the TV market. Global revenue will reach $1.8 billion in 2015, up from $10 million in 2009. Total units will be around 4.7 million.

OLED TV revenue forecast

Strangely, they say that 25,000 units will ship in 2009. But the only OLED TVs cost around 2,500$ (Sony's XEL-1), which means that $10M in revenue equals 4,000 units...

iSupply says the OLED displays for mobile phones (main displays) are expected to rise from 178m units in 2015 - up from 22.2m in 2009 (that's a factor of eight).

iSupply OLED mobile phone shipment forcast graph

And beyond the other allures offered by OLED, the technology is more environmentally sustainable compared to that of conventional LCDs.

OLEDs will still acount for a small part of the total market - only 6% in 2013.  iSupply says that the only factors limiting great penetratration is the limited number of suppliers and factories.

In an interesting note, iSupply says that the 2.6" OLED in the N85 costs 7.05$. An equivalent LCD would have cost 6.5$. That's only 8% more.

The worldwide AMOLED market will grow to 185.2 million units by 2014, rising at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 84.2%, up from 2.6 million units in 2007, according to iSuppli. Revenue is expected to grow in concert, expanding to US$4.6 billion by 2014, up at a CAGR of 83.3% from US$67 million in 2007.

In order to accelerate the process of migrating AMOLED technology from niche to mass market, multiple suppliers must add to their manufacturing resources and ramp up production quickly, Jakhanwal advised. "While mobile handsets are the obvious main target for the technology, these phones require multiple sources of suppliers with sufficient volumes to meet demand. It's unlikely that a single company will be able to fulfill this demand in the short term because no supplier presently has sufficient capacity."

Now mainly relegated to handset displays, OLED TV shipments will rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 170.6% to reach 1.2 million units in 2012, up from 8,000 in 2007. Sales revenue for OLED TVs will increase to US$691 million in 2012, rising from less than US$1 million in 2007, iSuppli forecasts.

Moreover, the resolutions needed in the TV market are attainable with OLEDs. OLED TVs in larger sizes, i.e. greater than 20-inches, could be sold by the 2012 timeframe. Most likely, these TVs will use polymer panels made by inkjet printing in the largest sizes, but small-molecule OLEDs made by evaporation techniques also could be used in TVs.

iSuppli Corp. forecasts mobile handset displays will reach 1.2 billion unit shipments in 2006, up 17 percent from 1.05 billion in 2005. Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) main displays will represent a mere 1 percent of the main display market this year. By 2010, this mix will change, with TFT-LCDs representing 87 percent of the market, monochrome and color STN-LCDs comprising only 4 percent of shipments and 9 percent of the market being served by OLED main displays.

Japanese suppliers have taken a dominant position in the fast-growing market for equipment used for manufacturing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, according to a new study from iSuppli Corp.

OLED unit sales expected to expand by a factor of 11 during the next six years, as their use expand in mobile phones, media players and other products, iSuppli predicts.

Although the outlook for OLEDs is robust, near-term sales growth is being inhibited by inadequacies in production equipment. Both technical and business issues are playing a role in slowing OLED equipment development.

A major challenge in the OLED equipment realm is a lack of standardisation. Every piece of OELD manufacturing gear is effectively custom-made-even if the manufacturer offers a set menu of features and options. This is because OLED processes vary wildly and are not optimised; panel makers need special adjustments as well as built-in flexibility for the inevitable changes that are still occurring.

Driven by cards and small public viewing screens, the flexible display panel market is expected to grow from $5 million in 2006 to $339 million in 2013, or 83.5 percent a year, according to iSuppli Corp.
Display types being used for flexible screens include LCD, Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED), electrophoretic and electrochromic. Flexible display technology has over the past year made progress in resolving technical and process issues, but remains behind on application and product development.

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