OLED-Info: the OLED experts

LG Display announced that it sold over 1.3 million OLED TV panels in the first half of 2018 - more than double the number of OLED TV panels sold in the first half of 2017 (0.6 million). LG Display says it aims to improve it production efficiency and sell more 1.6 million OLED TV panels in the second half of 2018.

LG Display started producing OLED TVs in 2013 - when it sold 200,000 units. In 2017 it sold 1.7 million panels. LGD aims to finally turn its OLED TV business into profitability in 2018.

Due to lower demand for flexible (due to several reasons, see here) in late 2017 and early 2018, Samsung's utilization rates at its flexible OLEDs fab were quite low, and its A4 production line was pretty much unused for the time.

But demand for mobile OLED displays is now on the rise, and a report from Korea now suggests that SDC aims to resume flexible OLED production in its A4 line in October 2018 - as the company secured new ordered for smartphone OLEDs from Chinese phone makers.

DSCC says that OLED area shipments grew 30% in the first half of 2018, mostly driven by strong growth in OLED TV shipments (a 98% increase from last year in term of area shipments). Smartphone OLED shipments stagnated in the first half, but growth will resume in the second half of the year - area shipments will grow 47% compared to H2 2017.

DSCC estimates that OLED TV panel revenues in the first half of 2018 grew 80% compared to the first half of 2017. Modern price declines were offset by a rise in unit shipments.

DisplayMate posted a review of Samsung's latest OLED display - the 6.4" 1440x2960 (516 PPI) flexible Super AMOLED used in the Galaxy Note 9. As we've seen many times before, Samsung managed to significantly improve its OLED quality - and DisplayMate says that this is the best mobile display ever tested.

In the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung concentrated on significantly raising the on-screen absolute picture quality and absolute color accuracy by implementing precision factory display calibration. This could have been a response to the excellent calibration done by Apple in the iPhone X.

According to IHS, flexible AMOLED shipments reached 157.6 million units in 2018 - about 38.9% of the total AMOLED market (rigid + flexible). Flexible OLEDs will grow at a much faster rate than rigid OLEDs, and shipments will exceed those of rigid OLEDs by 2020 (335.7 million units). In 2022 over 400 million flexible AMOLED panels will be produced, compared to around 340 million rigid AMOLEDs.

IHS sees demand for flexible OLEDs by smartphone brands that want to diffrentite their products using curved displays and full-screen ones. Foldable displays are also expected to be a key technology for mobile devices in the foreseeable future.

In March 2017 OLED maker BOE Technology and OLED Microdisplay maker OLiGHTEK announced a new $170 million joint-venture to produce OLED microdisplays for the consumer VR and AR markets.

Today we have a report from Korean ET News site that BOE is getting ready to start trial production in the new fab in early 2019. Kunming BOE Display Technology, the JV that was established by BOE and OLiGHTEK has began to order equipment for its new fab (including CVD, ALD, AOI and sputters)