October 2023

Samsung Electronics reported its financial results for Q3 2023, with revenues of $50 billion, down 12% from last year, and an operating profit of $1.78 billion - down 78% than last year, but an increase over the previous two quarters. Samsung says that there are still macroeconomic uncertainties, but it sees a recovery in the memory  market in 2024.

Samsung Display reports strong performance in the mobile panel business, as there's good demand for premium OLED smartphone panels panels, and it expects this to be maintained in the near future. The company also hope to expand its large-area QD-OLED panel sales, led by seasonal demand.

China-based AMOLED producer Everdisplay (EDO) reported its financial results for Q3  2023. Net loss increased to 1.1 billion Yuan ($150 million USD), and total loss in 2023 so far was 2.39 billion Yuan (around $325 million USD). 

The company says that the increased loss and drop in revenues were due to the global economic recession and weak demand in the consumer electronics market. The industry is facing a fierce price competition with radical price drops by AMOLED makers causing revenues and losses to decline.

Omdia says that the large-area FPD TV market (OLED and LCD) suffered from low demand in early 2023, but improved in Q3 2023. LCD TV prices increased, and companies were profitable again. However Omdia estimates that demand will soften again, and the market will suffer from over supply in Q4 2023 and the first half of 2024.

Omdia says that a supply/demand ratio of 10% represents a balanced market. This won't be achieved in the near future. Since the pandemic supply shortages, there's currently enough factory capacity to meet demand, and then some. The growth in demand enabled display makers to increase fab utilization from around 60% in early 2023 to around 85% in July 2023. However, fab utilization is expected to decline to around 75% in Q4 2023.

Motorola has demonstrated a new concept phone design, which they refer to as a Adaptive Display Concept. This is a smart bendable phone, that sports a 6.9" FHD+ (2220x1080) flexible AMOLED display produced by LG Display.

The adaptive display concept can be adjusted from a standard Android phone experience in a flat position to being wrapped for a wrist-worn experience or positioned in several stand modes. 

BOE hosted an event to mark the launch of its new X1 AMOLED screen, together with OnePlus, who will adopt the new display in its upcoming OnePlus 12 smartphone. BOE also announced, during the event, that it has produced over 100 million AMOLED displays already in 2023.

The OnePlus 12 will features a 2K (3168x1440) display that will offer a peak brightness of 2600 nits. The smartphone will also sport the company's own Oppo P1 display chip that features high-precision pixel calibration algorithms that ensure high brightness, high image quality - reduced power consumption (by 13%, according to OnePlus). The display is based on BOE's new-generation of LTPO backplane, that the company says offer stable high and low frequency switching and increase image performance, while reducing power consumption compared to its previous LTPO platform.

LGD reported its financial results for Q3 2023, saying that revenues were almost flat from last quarter as the industry faces an intense inventory correction and demand is slow to recover.

LGD's revenues were 4.785 trillion Won (around $3.5 billion USD) with an operating loss of 662 billion Won (or around $490 million USD).

According to reports from Korea, Samsung Electronics has decided to adopt an AMOLED displays in its upcoming budget phone, the Galaxy A15. This will be the lowest cost Samsung phone to ever sport an OLED display.

Most of Samsung's entry-level phones use an LCD, but it seems that as prices of OLED panels continue to drop, Samsung is introducing its OLED into a wider range of phones. In fact it is said that Samsung's production cost of a rigid OLED is currently lower than the production cost of an equivalent LCD display. The A15 will use a 6.4" rigid (glass-based) panel, and the phone itself will cost around $270 when it launches next year, for the 5G variant. 

DSCC shared their estimation about display fab utilization (LCD and OLEDs), with some interesting comments. The slowdown in the industry, according to DSCC, is effecting all display makers, but the slowdown in demand for OLEDs is more severe and persistent. The industry is starting to recover, but this is a bumpy ride as the total capacity still far outstrips demand, and DSCC sees a slowdown in Q4 2023.

DSCC says that the slowdown for large-screen displays bottomed out towards the end of 2022, the slowdown in mobile devices only hit bottom in early 2023. There is still a weak demand for rigid OLEDs, mostly because of the lower demand for smartphones - but also because China-based flexible OLED makers are lowering prices to make them more competitive with glass-based OLEDs.

A report from Korea's The Elec publication says that Samsung Display is highly interested in next-generation OLED deposition technologies, that are not based on a metal mask (FMM). Several companies are developing and commercialization such technologies. As these may enable higher-performance OLED production, Samsung Display is interested.

A few months ago we reported that SDC is interested in SEL's maskless production technology, and indeed the new The Elec report states that the two companies are in talks. SEL is one of the three companies we are aware of that have advanced maskless technologies, the other two being Visionox and Japan Display. Samsung Display is mostly interested in a technology that it can exclusively license as it does not want other companies to produce OLEDs using the same technology. Both Visionox and JDI are interested in using their technologies in-house, which is a problem for SDC.

Germany-based OLED lighting developer Inuru announced that it has raised $10 million, from Aper Ventures, Adamed Technology (the venture capital arm of Polish pharmaceutical company Adamed Pharma), ARIA, and a group of business angels. Inuru says that the new funds will enable it expand into new industries with its interactive OLED labels.

Inuru says it is now focusing on two sections: medication and entertainment. Inuru's main focus for the medication industry is to use its OLED labels to assist patients in learning the expiration date on medication and to adhere to the prescribed guidelines. The company says that the repercussions of non-adherence and medication mismanagement contribute to an estimated $600 billion in preventable healthcare expenses and 325,000 annual fatalities.