Omdia (IHS Markit) says that even though global demand for smartphones in 2020 will drop 13% compared to 2019 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the demand for smartphone AMOLED displays will increase by 9%. AMOLED penetration will rise sharply in 2020.

In 2020 513 million smartphone AMOLED panels will ship, up from 471 million in 2019. The growth will be entirely driven by flexible AMOLEDs which will see a 50% surge in production in 2020. Rigid OLED shipments will decline 12% in 2020.

Huawei launches its Mate Xs foldable smartphone in February 2020, with a 8" 2200x2480 foldable AMOLED display (produced by BOE). Huawei's consumer business CEO, Yu Chengdong, says taht even though the Mate Xs costs $2,400 the company lost around $60-70 million on this smartphone since its launch.

The Mate Xs is an updated Mate X, with the same display and form factor, but with upgraded specifications.

Huawei is set to release its first OLED TV, the 65" X65. The company has released some posters that tease the new TV:

According to reports from China, the X65 OLED TV will be based on Huawei's Hongmeng smart OS and will include a 24MP pop-up camera, a 14-speaker setup and an ambient sensor to adjust the screen image to enable more accurate images. Huawei is expected to officially launch its first OLED TV later this week.

Today we published new versions of our market reports - that cover the flexible, VR/AR, microdisplays, automotive, PMOLED and graphene OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to April 2020.

The Flexible and Foldable OLED Market Report:

• Why flexible displays and lighting panels are so exciting
• What kind of flexible displays are currently on the market
• All about the foldable OLED market and industry
• What the future holds for flexible OLEDs
• How to acquire flexible OLEDs for your products

The report package provides a good introduction to the flexible and foldable OLED market - present and future. It details both flexible displays and lighting technologies. Read more here!

Market research company Omdia (previous IHS Markit) have revised down its global TV outlook - and say that it expects only 3.5 million OLED TV units to ship in 2020. Omdia's previous estimate was 4.5 million units, and this too was decreased from its original forecast in late 2019 of 5.5 million.

The OLED TV is still growing (unlike the entire TV market which will shrink in 2020), but due to the CotonaVirus outbreak, LGD's plans to expand production will be delayed.

Samsung Electronics's 2nd foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Z Flip, sports an ultra-thin glass cover, which replaced the polyimide one used in its previous foldable, the Galaxy Fold. The UTG glass cover is produced by Korea-based Dowoo Insys, who processes Schott's ultra thin glass.

According to a new report from Korea, Samsung Electronics wants to develop its own UTG cover, as it feels the Dowoo Insys UTG is still not robust enough and the company also wants to increase production yields and reduce costs. SE is already in talks with several glass suppliers for this project.

Chinese OLED developer Royole announced its next-generation (3rd-Gen) fully flexible OLED displays, which it refers to as "Cicada Wing". Royole says that these new displays deliver significant improvements over its previous generation displays. The new displays have a material stack of over 100 layers.

Cicada Wing displays, compared to Royole's 2nd-Gen flexible OLEDs, offer 5X higher contrast, 50% higher brightness, 20% faster response time and a better color shift. It also offers a low brightness decay (Royole says it is 3.5X better then competing foldable OLEDs).

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Fig.1 Example use case for printed electrochromics: a shock detector smart label with an interactive printed interface.

Expanding Need for Simple Electronic Display Functionality

Rapid advances in the miniaturization and reduction of costs in computing, electronic sensing, and communications have allowed the integration of smart electronic functionality into almost everything. Intelligence is now embedded into a wide range of everyday objects, and spread throughout our working and living environments. Much of this intelligence, data collection and transfer is hidden from the human senses, requiring little or no human involvement. But as the number of human daily touch points and interactions with smart devices grows, so too does the importance of user experience design and the role of displays.

Reuters reports that Samsung Display has decided to stop all LCD production by the end of 2020. The company will continue to support it current customers without any issues.

SDC has two LCD production lines in Korea. One of these will be converted to next-generation QD-OLED TV panels (in a $10.8 billion investment announced in October 2019). According to Reuters, the second line will also be converted to QD-OLED in the future. SDC did not yet decide what will it do with its two LCD production lines in China.