OLED is a display technology that enables thin, efficient, flexible and bright displays, TVs and lighting devices. OLED displays offer the world's best image quality - and enables future foldable and rollable displays (see more here - What is OLED?).
The OLED market is already a multi-billion dollar market, led by Samsung and LG Display with their smartphone and TV OLED businesses. It is estimated that OLED displays generated around $25 billion in revenues in 2018 (and analysts expect the market to continue its fast growth in the future).
OLED stocks
There are dozens of companies developing and producing OLEDs, from display makers such as Samsung, LG and BOE to smaller R&D startups and IP companies.
For public investors interested in the OLED market, there are several good options:
- Universal Display Corporation: UDC is an OLED pioneer, and holds many of the key patents in the industry (mostly around efficient phosphorescent OLED emitters). Virtually all AMOLED displays on the market adopt UDC's PHOLED materials, and the company experienced very fast growth in revenue in recent years. Universal Display's stock ticker is OLED, you can see the OLED share price here.
- eMagin: eMagin is an OLED microdisplay pioneer, and has been developing and producing such displays for many years, focusing on the defense market and recently also on the consumer VR/AR market. eMagin's stock ticker is EMAN.
- OLED display makers: OLED display makers can be a good investment opportunity - especially companies that have a focus on OLED displays - such as Samsung Display and LG display, BOE Display and more.
- OLED equipment makers: There are several public equipment companies (for example Coherent and Applied Materials) that enjoyed the recent OLED capacity expansion as new OLED fabs require new equipment to produce OLED displays. These companies could be a good investment opportunity to investors who believes a new wave of OLED capacity expansion is near.
For private investors who want to find early-stage startups, we offer the OLED crowdfunding arena, a new and innovative service!
We'll be happy to hear your thoughts on OLED investing - join the discussion at our investment forum!
The latest OLED stock news:
OLED material producer Jilin OLED raises $166 in an IPO
China's Jilin Optical and Electronic Materials is now a public company, as it starts trading on the Shanghai STAR Market (ticker 688378). The company raised 1.14 billion Yuan (US$166 million), and the IPO was 3,426 times oversubscribed.
Jilin Optical and Electronic Materials was established in 2005. The company develops and produces a range of OLED materials, including hole injection materials, hole transport materials, light-emitting layer materials and electron transport materials. In 2019 it Jilin etablished a $85 million OLED Material R&D center in China.
Visionox profits decreased sharply as AMOLED prices drop in June
China-based OLED maker Visionox posted its H1 2020 financial results - with a net profit that dropped 47.3% (from H1 2019) to $13.4 million. This result was actually boosted by the sale of some assets, without which the company would have posted losses of $77 million.
Visionox revenues actually increased 4.5% to $173.8 million, but the company's profit margin was much lower as price of rigid OLED displays dropped 27% in June compared to last year. The price of flexible OLEDs was also down by 11%.
eMagin reports its financial results for Q2 2020
OLED microdisplay maker eMagin announced reported its financial results for Q2 2020. Revenues reached $7.7 million, an increase of 44% from Q2 2019. Operating loss was $1.3 million (down from $2.8 million in Q2 2019).
eMagin says it continues to see strong demand for its microdisplays in the military market, and also in the medical market. At the end of the quarter eMagin's backlog was $13.3 million of products to be shipped in the next 12 months. Cash and equivalents at the end of the quarter were $11.5 million.
UDC reports its Q2 2020 financial results, sees lower revenues due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Universal Display reported its financial results for Q2 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact UDC, as customer orders and shipments declined. UDC reports $58 million in revenues (down from $112 million in Q1 2020 and $118 million in Q2 2020) and a net income of $800,000. Part of the reason for the revenue drop were two orders made in Q1 (worth $44 million) as safety-stock due to the trade concerns and COVID-19 uncertainties.
While the second quarter was very disappointing for UDC, the company reports that demand has picked up in July (the first month of Q3) as customer orders increased. There are still "significant uncertainties" ahead and the company will not provide any guidance until visibility improves.
AMS is shipping very high volumes of behind-the-OLED sensors, is developing new sensors
In January 2019 Austria-based Sensor developer AMS announced a new RGB light and proximity sensor IC that can be placed behind an OLED screen, and still accurately measure the intensity of ambient light. Later in 2019, AMS said that the new sensor is a "resounding market success".
In its latest conference call, AMS management said that its behind-the-OLED light and proximity sensing is continuing their adoption in major Android platforms. The company is now shipping very high volumes of sensing solutions. The company is now developing more behind-the-OLED technologies with significant R&D activities.
Samsung reports its Q2 2020 financial results, sees full-fledged mobile display recovery only in Q4 2020
Samsung reports a large increase in its profit in Q2 2020 - as the COVID 19 pandemic increases demand for memory chips, and also as a result of a one-time $950 million penalty payment from Apple following lower OLED orders.
Samsung's net profit in Q2 2020 totaled $4.67 billion (an increase of 7% from Q2 2019), while its revenues were $44.4 billion (down 6% from last year).
LGD reports its financial results for Q3 2020, with lower demand for OLED TVs and pOLEDs
LG Display reported its financial results for Q2 2020 - with revenues up 12% over last quarter, as the company enjoyed an increase in demand for IT panels (monitors, notebooks, tablets). But lower demand for TVs and lower utilization at its POLED fabs increased LGD's operating loss.
LG Display says it expects its Q3 revenues and operation profit to improve - as mass production of OLED TV panels in Guangzhou finally started, and the company will ship pOLED panels to Apple's iPhone 12 in the next quarter. LG maintains its 4.5-5 million OLED TV panel shipment forecast for the whole of 2020.
The US DoD awards eMagin with $33.6 million to sustain and maintain its OLED microdisplay production facility
Last month OLED microdisplay maker eMagin announced that the company received a $5.5 million award from the US Department of Defense to improve eMagin’s OLED microdisplay manufacturing capabilities - which was a first phase in a three phase program.
The DoD yesterday published the full project, a Defense Production Act Title III agreement with eMagin that has a total funding of $33.6 million (this excludes the $5.5 million announced before). The DoD wants eMagin to sustain and expand its critical industrial base production of OLED microdisplays. This project is part of the US national response to COVID-19.
eMagin reports its preliminary Q2 2020 revenues
OLED microdisplay maker eMagin posted its preliminary revenues for the second quarter of 2020 and backlog at June 30, 2020. eMagin estimates that revenues in Q2 2020 will be between $7.4 million to $7.7 million, a 38-44% increase from Q2 2019 and 10-15% increase from Q1 2020.
eMagin says that it has seen improvement in demand from both its military business and its consumer or commercial programs. The company's backlog as of June 30 was $14.8 million.
JDI developed a new OLED production technology, looking for customer partners to commence mass production
Japan Display says it is developing a new OLED production technology that will enable higher resolution and higher efficiency OLED displays, and the company is in talks with potential customers regarding a joint investment in producing next-generation OLEDs.
According to JDI's CEO, the company is using a new manufacturing technology that is different to the evaporation method currently used by OLED makers. It is not clear what is meant by that - it could be an inkjet-printing technology (but achieving high resolution for smartphone displays with inkjet printing is a challenge) or something like OVPD or OVJP - or a new technology developed in-house at JDI.
