August 2017

According to IHS, the OLED encapsulation material grew 4.7% in 2017 to reach $117 million. IHS expects the market to grow at a 16% CAGR to reach $233 by 2021.

The market growth rate will increase as new OLED fabs begin operation in China and Korea. IHS categorizes OLED encapsulation materials into metal, frit glass, TFE and hybrid. The metal type is mostly used for OLED TVs, in which IHS expects the fastest growth in terms of substrate size. Glass encapsulation will remain strong but will lose market share in the future.

According to Digitimes, Visionox has completed the construction of the building for its 6-Gen AMOLED fab in Hebei province, China. The company will start moving in and installing the production equipment in the beginning of 2018.

Visionox's 6-Gen fab will have a monthly capacity of 30,000 substrates, and will be mainly used to produce flexible AMOLEDs. Production will begin in mid-2018. This fab will cost around $4.5 billion.

Last year researchers from Korea's KAIST institute developed a process to deposit OLED displays on textile substrates. Using several-micrometer-thick fibers, the researcher created thin fabrics from these fibers and coated them with OLED materials which were then encapsulated to achieve a lifetime of 1,000 hours.

The same KAIST group now announced that this OLED-on-fabric program is advancing. The researchers now report that their latest prototype "OLED-clothing-device" has high lifetimes and feature good electro-optic characteristics. The bending radius of the new fabric is only 2 mm. The researchers say that this new prototype is the most flexible and highest performing OLED on fabric ever demonstrated.

According to Business Korea, Sony is enjoying "explosive" demand for its OLED TVs since the beginning of Q2 2017, and the Japanese TV maker has reached out to LGD asking to double OLED TV shipments.

Sony will receive a total of 300,000 OLED TV panels from LGD in 2017, and it aims to order more than 600,000 panels per year starting in 2019 (once LGD can increase its OLED TV capacity). The Korean report suggested that Sony may assist LGD with an investment to secure the capacity.

Mercedes-Benz will unveil its upcoming S-Class Coupe and Cabriolet cars at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show in September. These new premium cars will sport OLED lighting - Mercedes released the teaser you see below.

Mercedes adopted red OLED panels, and each module includes 33 individually controlled OLED panels. It will be great to see these cars next month, hopefully the OLEDs will be used in all models (in Audi's case, the OLED Taillights are optional extras).

In March 2017 OLED maker BOE Technology and OLED Microdisplay maker OLiGHTEK announced a new joint-venture to produce OLED microdisplays for the consumer VR and AR markets. The new venture will establish production fab in Kunming, Yunnan with an annual production capacity of a million OLED microdisplays.

BOE Technology announced a few days ago the structure of this venture has been finalized. Total investment will amount to ¥1.15 billion (around $172 million USD), a bit higher than first announced. BOE will invest ¥670 billion and will hold a 67% stake. OLiGHTEK will invest ¥200 million.

UBI Research estimates smartphone OLED display shipments reached 95.3 million units in Q2 2017, up 2.6% from last year (92.9 million Q2 2016) while TV panel shipments grew 165% to reach 370,000 units.

Compared to last quarter (Q1 2017), smartphone shipments grew 0.6%. Samsung Display is still the clear market leader - with a market share of 96.7%. OLED TV panel shipments increased 21.2% from Q1 2017, and UBI expects this market to continue growing gradually throughout 2017.

LG Display's first large flexible OLED Production line, the E5 line in Gumi was supposed to start producing panels in June 2017, but reports from Taiwan suggested that LG delayed the mass production to August (which caused LGD to lose a 3 million OLED supply deal with Xiaomi).

According to analysts from CLSA, the yields at the E5 line are still very low - at around 10%, and it will take LG quite some time to increase the yields enough to start mass production - yields will be at around 30% at year's end, still very low. The displays for upcoming LGD's V30 smartphone were supposed to come out of this line, but LGD has decided to produce these at the E2 4.5-Gen line which is not an efficient fab for smartphone panels.

A few days ago we posted that LG Display demonstrated an OLED Taillight module - the first time LGD actually unveiled an OLED lighting design for the automotive market. According to a new article in Business Korea, LGD is indeed in advanced talks with Germany automakers to supply OLED lighting systems starting in 2018.

According BK, LGD is in talks with Mercedes Benz, Audi and Volkswagen. The OLED lighting panels will be produced at LGD's upcoming 5-Gen OLED lighting fab. LGD's should start low-volume production soon, and the company aims to ramp-up production to 15,000 monthly substrates by the end of 2017.

In December 2016 China-based AMOLED producer Everdisplay officially launched production of its upcoming $4.1 billion 6-Gen AMOLED factory in Shanghai, China. Everdisplay's new fab construction is progressing, and EDO today held a ceremony noting that the company finished the building's main steel plant roof frame.

EDO's new fab will be able to produce 30,000 monthly substrates (1500 x 1850 mm) and will be used to produce small and medium sized flexible AMOLEDs (1 to 15 inch). EDO aims to begin installing equipment in August 2018 with trial production beginning in January 2019 and mass production in 2021.