DSCC

DSCC says that the OLED materials market will reach $2.12 billion in 2024, rising 24% over 2023. The market will continue growing at a 6% CAGR until 2028, reaching about $2.7 billion. DSCC details the revenue split between single-stack, tandem and multi-stack panels, saying that materials used in tandem OLED panels will grow at a fast rate of 30% CAGR from 2024-2028. 

The leading materials makers by revenue in 2024 will be UDC, DuPont, LG Chemical and Samsung SDI, holding a market share of 51% together. DSCC says that Chinese materials makers will increase their market share in the future. 

DSCC says that the AMOLED industry (mainly smartphones and IT applications) is still in oversupply, and this will remain so until 2028 - but demand is expected to increase faster than capacity and so the oversupply will gradually decline to 2028.

Regarding OLED TVs, demand will increase and fab utilization will improve - but in this market DSCC also sees an oversupply situation to 2028 at least (a surplus of 22% in 2028).

DSCC says OLED revenues are expected to grow 12% in 2024 and reach $44 billion. OLED panel shipments will grow 18% in 2024. The fastest growing OLED market segments are tablets and monitors.

OLED tablet panel shipments will increase 202% in 2024, and this will result in a 632% increase in revenues, driven mostly by Appe's first adoption of OLED panels in its 13" and 11.1" iPad Pro tablets. OLED monitors will grow slower, but still impressively - 80% in shipments, and 45% in revenues.

DSCC says that shipments of OLED for tablets in Q1 2024 rose 131% from last year, to reach 1.72 million units, as Apple started to adopt OLEDs in its iPad tablets. In fact, shipments to Apple represented 47% of all OLED shipments in the quarter (following by Huawei at 25% and Samsung at 17%). 

DSCC sees the growth continuing to accelerate - and in Q2 2024 shipments will rise to 3.9 million units, or up 333% from Q2 2023, as Apple, Microsoft, Huawei and Samsung will all enjoy an increase in OLED tablet sales. 

DSCC says that foldable OLED shipments increased 46% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to last year, to reach almost 4 million units. 

BOE was leading the market in Q1 2024, with a market share of 48% (up from 43% in Q1 2023). The two leading foldable smartphone models were Huawei's Mate X5 and Pocket 2, using panels supplied by BOE. In fact Huawei had a market share of 55% in the foldable smartphone market.

DSCC says that the OLED market grew around 50% (revenues) in the second half of 2023, compared to the first half of 2023. DSCC expects the OLED market to continue growing in 2024, with revenues to increase 4% over 2023 (with a 11% growth in unit shipments).

The growth in 2024 will mainly be driven by higher demand for AMOLED smartphone panels, TVs and IT applications. In the whole of 2023, DSCC estimates that the market contracted by 4%, and it is now returning to growth. 

DSCC estimates that the market for OLED evaporation materials (i.e. OLED stack materials) will reach $1.7 billion in 2023, and will grow to $2.7 billion in 2027 (a 11% CAGR from 2023). If UDC will succeed to commercially introduce a blue phosphorescence material, revenues can even be much higher.

OLED materials used in TV applications (and other large-area applications) will grow from $305 million in 2023, to $492 million in 2027, a 13% CAGR. DSCC also sees very fast growth in material used to produce tandem-structure IT displays, which will grow at a 79% CAGR to reach $443 million in 2027.

DSCC estimates that foldable smartphone shipments reached 7 million units in Q3 2023, up 16% from last year and 215% from last quarter, as Samsung successfully launched the ` and Z Fold 5 phones, and other smartphone brands from China also ramped up their foldable smartphone sales.

Samsung's market share in the smartphone market was 72%, followed by Huawei (9%) and Honor (8%). DSCC expects foldable smartphone sales to fall 35% in the next quarter (but rise 47% compared to last year) on lower Samsung shipments and delays in new product announcements. In 2023, DSCC sees foldable smartphone shipments to reach 15.8 million units in total.

DSCC reports that according to its information, OLED panel shipments in Q3 2023 increased 14% from last year (and 18% from the previous quarter) to reach 205 million units. There are positive signs that inventory has started to rebalance for some categories.

OLED smartphone shipments increased 12% over last quarter (and 25% from last year), while OLED TV shipments continue to be soft, and dropped 14% from last quarter and 40% (!) from last year.

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.