IHS Markit says that demand for Oxide-TFT backplanes has surged over 100% in 2017, led by both LCDs and AMOLED TVs. The demand is expected to continue its growth although at lower rates and will reach 6.8 million billion sqm in 2020 (up from 1.7 billion sqm in 2017).

OLED TV Oxide-TFT backplanes shipments (all from LG Display) grew 106% in 2017 while demand for LCD panels (mostly produced by Sharp) grew 98%, mostly led by Apple's adoption of Oxide-TFT LCDs in its iPads and notebooks.

US-based high-index material maker Pixelligent Technologies announced it raised $7.6 million in a new funding round that will help the company to further drive its product commercialization and accelerate global customer adoption.

This round was led by the Abell Foundation, and included other Baltimore-based investors. This found also included strategic investments from Kateeva and Japan-based advanced material producer Tokyo Ohka Kogyo.

Yesterday we reported that BOE unveiled a new 7.6" 2048x1536 foldable (5R bending radius) AMOLED display, and today we have more information and a video that shows this new display.

So the display is 7.56" 2048x1536 (338 PPI) foldable AMOLED, that features a brightness of 380 nits and a color gamut of 100% NTSC. The display is 0.66 mm thick. The video also shows BOE's 6.2" 2992x1440 (537 PPI) notch-type AMOLED and its 13" 8K LCD display.

In October 2017 Taiwan-based Innolux started to produce its first flexible AMOLED display, a round 1.39" 400x400 (287 PPI) panel. This is a great display for wearable applications, mostly smart watches.

The short video above shows this interesting display in action, in our demo kit (which is also available to order).

Digitimes reports that four of China's OLED makers (BOE, Visionox, Tianma and EDO) have stepped up their efforts to develop foldable OLEDs, and have all demonstrated foldable prototypes at the China Information Technology Expo 2018 (CITE 2018).

First up we have Visionox, with its 7.2" foldable panel you can see above. This was already reported last week.

IHS Markit announced that it is lowering its smartphone AMOLED market forecasts, following lower-than-expected iPhone X sales (mainly because of its high price). IHS says that OLED makers will need to lower production costs of both rigid and flexible AMOLED panels in order to compete with lower priced high-end LCDs.

IHS expected flexible OLED shipments to reach 167 million panels in 2018 - up 34% compared to 2017, but a much lower amount then the company's previous estimates. Total (rigid + flexible) OLED shipments in 2018 will grow 14% to 453 million.

Samsung Display is aiming to start producing foldable OLED displays by the end of 2018, and it is assumed that the company will supply its first such displays to Samsung Electronics (who is planning to release its first foldable phone/tablet by early 2019).

A new report from Korea suggests that Huawei is planning to beat Samsung Electronics to the market with a "truly" foldable phone. Huawei will unveil its first such phone in November - but the phone will take longer to actually ship. The phone will fold inside.

It seems that more and more analysts believe that Apple will eventually release two new OLED iPhone models in 2018. According to the latest report from Korea, Apple is now in talks with Samsung regarding the price of its flexible OLED panels for the smaller 5.8" iPhone Xs 2018 variant.

Samsung's OLED fab utilization rates are low as Apple cut its orders for the iPhone X displays in half. It seems that Apple now aims to take advantage of that and the iPhone maker is asking for a lower price for 2018 OLED panel. The reports suggest that Samsung will supply 100 million OLED panels to Apple in 2018 - 25 million for the 2017 iPhone X and 75 for the 2018 iPhone Xs. The larger (around 6.5") OLED iPhone (iPhone Xs Plus?) will use panels produced by LG Display.

OLED materials producer Idemitsu Kosan established a new OLED production subsidiary in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. The new company, 100% owned by Idemitsu Kosan, is called Idemitsu Electronic Materials (China) Co., Ltd. and the capital investment in this new company is $12.8 million USD.

The new Chengdu fab will be Idemitsu's third OLED production fab, joining its plant in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan and Paju, South Korea. Idemitsu says that this new production plant will enable it to meet the growth in demand from OLED makers in China.

DSCC says that OLED equipment spending will fall 30% in 2018. OLED spending will outpace LCD spending and OLED will hold a 60% share of all display equipment spending from 2019-2021, but OLED spending will not reach the high levels of 2017 in the foreseeable future.

According to DSCC, China is driving display (LCD + OLED) spending and will account for an 83% share of OLED equipment spending in 2018.