Huawei

Interesting rumors from China suggest that Huawei is planning to release the industry's first smartphone that sports a tri-foldable OLED. When fully open, the device will sport a 10" display, which means it will double as a full tablet and a smartphone. Huawei's plan is to release it in the first half of 2024.

Samsung tri-folding AMOLED prototype

The rumors continue to suggest that Samsung Electronics noticed Huawei's plan, and the Korean smartphone maker may decide to be the first on the market with a novel device, launching its own tri-folding phone - or perhaps even the first rollable phone. 

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 says that 2.22 million foldable smartphones shipped in Q1 2022, up 571% from the first quarter of 2021. In Q4 2021, however, 4.2 million units shipped (a 47% decrease).

DSCC estimates that a total of 16 million foldable OLED phones will ship in 2022, a 107% increase compared to 2021. In terms of OLED panels, over 20 million will be produced and shipped in 2022.

DSCC says that OLED production will grow 94% in the Q2 2021, fueled by strong demand for OLED in smartphones, TVs and other devices - coupled with a recovery from the pandemic. Growth in OLED input area for small & medium displays is expected to grow 68%, while grow in OLED TV input area will grow by 134% over last year.

The chart above shows the total OLED (and mobile LCD) industry capacity. As you can see, flexible OLED capacity is growing - mainly from expansions by CSoT, Tianma and Visionox. There's also growth in rigid OLED capacity - from Everdisplay and JOLED.

China-based OLED maker Visionox reported good preliminary financial results for 2020, with increased sales and improved revenues and profits. The company expects its net profit to be around 141-210 million Yuan ($21-31 million USD), which will represent an increase of 120-227% over 2019.

The company says that its ability to innovate OLED technologies (specially the world's first OLED with an under-the-screen camera and the world's first 144Hz refresh rate OLED) enabled the company to increase its customer base and in 2020 it has added OPPO and Motorola as customers.

DSCC estimates that foldable OLED panel shipments will reach 3.1 million units in 2020, an increase of 454% from 2019. Revenues in 2020 will reach $462 million. DSCC decreased its estimates following the US restrictions on Huawei which prevented the launch of the Mate X2. The market will grow to 94 million panels by 2025 (a CAGR of 97% from 2018).

Samsung is clearly the leading foldable OLED device brand, with a market share of over 80% in the 2020. The two best selling smartphones in 2020 are the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and the Z Fold 2.

UBI Research says that the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with US sanctions against Huawei are lowering demand for OLED smartphone panels. UBI estimates that in Q3 2020 113 million OLED smartphone panels were shipped, 17.9% lower than in Q3 2019.

Even though Apple is expanding its OLED adoption, this is not enough to offset the decreased demand from the COVID-19 and Huawei sanctions, and UBI estimates that Q4 2019 will also be lower by around 18% from last year.

Last month it was reported that following the US government sanctions against Huawei, both Samsung Display and LG Display may not be able to sell OLED panels to Huawei any more, as these use drivers that are based on US-developed technology.

Samsung Display has applied to the US government to get an approval to export these OLEDs, and according to new reports from Korea SDC has obtained the approval. According to the report, the US agreed to this sale as Huawei is also buying OLED displays from Chinese-based producers which means that this is not a required import for Huawei.

The US government imposed sanctions against Huawei, which prevents the Chinese company to acquire components that use US-developed chips. According to a report from Korea, both Samsung Display and LG Display will have to stop supplying OLED displays to Huawei as these use drivers that are based on US-developed technology.

Samsung Display has applied for a US US Department of Commerce license which will allow it to export the technology to Huawei. LG Display decided not to apply for the license, at least for now, as its OLED sales to Huawei are limited in any case.

According to reports from China, Huawei is starting to develop its own OLED driver ICs - and will start mass producing these chips later in 2020

It seems that Huawei aims to increase its self-sufficiency (especially with the US sanctions in place). In addition, the company believes its own chips will outperform the chips supplied to Huawei by third party and will enable it to improve its smartphone design.