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The OLED's industry main new target, for the past several years, has been the IT display sector, mainly tablets, laptops and monitors. While we have seen OLED displays penetrate this market many years ago, the current 6-Gen AMOLED production lines are optimized for smartphone and wearable display production.

A few years ago display makers realized that OLED production lines with larger substrates will enable lower cost production, and will enable to increase the adoption of OLEDs in such devices. When this converged with technology readiness (depositing OLED materials and TFTs on such large areas was not possible before), several companies initiated new projects, all of which use 8.6-Gen (2250 x 2600 mm) substrates. We are now at a stage where two companies (BOE and Samsung) are very close to mass production, and the first displays will start production soon. 

As the global electronics industry pursues supply chain diversification away from China's overwhelming dominance, India has emerged as a focal point for next-generation manufacturing. There’s much government backing towards the semiconductor industry, but our focus, of course is on the display industry.

Can India establish itself as a significant display manufacturing hub? In this article we look into India’s display research capabilities, the country's chemical industry, supply chain challenges, the geopolitical imperative to reduce Western dependence on Chinese production, and current OLED, LCD and microLED projects and efforts. We conclude by trying to predict where India is header, and whether there is a real chance that in the future will see a meaningful display industry in India.

Samsung Display Corporation stands today as the world's dominant OLED panel manufacturer, commanding approximately 40% of global OLED revenue and producing around 500 million AMOLED panels annually.  SDC’s OLED business is as profitable as the entire display industry together, if not more. This remarkable position represents the culmination of more than two decades of strategic investments, technological innovation, and calculated risks that began when OLED technology was still in its infancy.

Indeed, Samsung was the first company to fully commit to AMOLED production, and invested heavily in early R&D and took a leap of faith that was needed as the technology was not fully ready for mass adoption.

In this article, we detail Samsung Display's history, AMOLED and QD-OLED capabilities and fabs, its technology roadmap, opportunities and challenges, and its OLED microdisplays and microLED projects.

In our OLED history article series, we look back 20, 10, and 5 years ago, and revisit the history of the OLED industry. We hope these are articles are nostalgic, and fun - but also informative - by reflecting on the past, we can better understand how far the industry has come and where it is headed. 

The 2006 BenQ-Siemens S88, the world's first AMOLED phone

20 years ago - Q1 2006

In early 2006, OLED production was almost only simple passive-matrix displays (PMOLEDs), but we were starting to see an emergence of AMOLED production. In fact, in January 2006, phone maker BenQ-Siemens announced the world's first phone to use an AMOLED display, the S88, with its 2" 176x220 display produced by AUO. AUO continued to produce AMOLEDs at low quantities, but never managed to fully achieve real mass production.

Tianma Microelectronics has established itself as one of the world's leading AMOLED producers, building on its legacy as an LCD producer. The company produced almost 60 million OLED displays in 2024, and it has grown over 20% in 2025, and produced over 75 million panels.

Tianma is not amongst the world three leading OLED producers (Samsung, BOE and LG Display), but it is a strong competitor, and holds an estimated 8-10% of the total smartphone AMOLED market. The company is also building strong capabilities in automotive OLEDs, and high-end smartphone AMOLED displays.

In this article, we detail Tianma's history, AMOLED capabilities and fabs, its technology roadmap, opportunities and challenges, and its microLED and ePaper projects.

OLED emitters are the key component of any OLED display, as these materials are responsible for the actual light emission. As the OLED industry grew to around $50 billion in yearly revenues, OLED emitter suppliers have enjoyed a growth in demand, and this resulted in increased R&D towards higher performance materials.

Most people will associate the OLED emitter market with Universal Display, and indeed the company is almost a monopoly in commercial phosphorescence OLEDs, both red and green. 

But there's more to the OLED emitter market than just UDC. While the OLED emitter materials market is indeed highly concentrated, with a few key players dominating specific technology segments, there are over a dozen companies, in Japan, Korea, China, the EU, and the US, that develop and produce OLED emitters, based on several different material platforms. In the future, the industry may shape up quite differently that it is today.

In this article we look into the global OLED emitter industry, estimate the market and its future growth, and identify all the relevant material developers (over 25 companies, including early stage companies, pure-play OLED material makers, and large chemical makers, in all major geographies). We also list major OLED host producers, as these materials are highly connected to the OLED emitter in the OLED device stack, and in many times there is confusion regarding the host producer and the actual emitter producer.