CLSA sees lower demand for OLED displays in China in 2018, updates on OLED production ramp-up

Financial analysts from CLSA released an interesting short report about OLED demand in China. According to IDC, OLED smartphone shipments in China was down 6% in Q4 2017 (compared to Q4 2016) to 36 million units - in line with total Chinese smartphone weakness (-8% in the same period). Total OLED smartphone shipments in 2017 reached 128 million, up 8% compared to 2016. OLED penetration was up only 1% (to 15%) in 2017.

CLSA sees lower demand in 2018 and 2019 compared to early estimates - 175 million in 2018 and 225 million in 2019. That's 11% (2018) and 20% (2019) lower than CLSA's earlier estimates. CLSA is less optimistic than before regarding the ramp-up at Tianma, Truly and CSoT.

CLSA however, sees first-tier Chinese OLED suppliers BOE and Visionox ramping up faster than earlier expected. BOE recently completed constructing its Miangyang 6-Gen flexible OLED fab and expects mass production to begin in May 2019. Visionox hopes to begin production in their new 6-Gen fab in the middle of 2018. CLSA also expects Visionox to become a public company using the shares of Blackcow which we always assumed was an investor in Visionox but it turns the relationship is tighter than we thought.

BOE Flexible AMOLED prototype photo

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Posted: Feb 12,2018 by Ron Mertens