Nanomarkets released a new white paper about solution-Processed OLEDs. They estimate that in order for the OLED market to grow significantly for TV and lighting applications, companies must adopt solution-processable materials. Soluble OLEDs have been researched for years with very little outcome outside of the lab. But Nanomarkets believes that the current problems can be fixed, and are worth fixing.

Soluble OLED materials and appropriate processes are being researched by Sumitomo, DuPont, Pioneer, UDC, Solvay, Marck and others. They estimate that the first panels to be made using these materials will be Pioneer's (together with Mitsubishi) OLED lighting panels - planned for 2014. Nanomarkets thinks that if Pioneer succeeded, it may push GE back into the OLED game with their own soluble material solutions. It's interesting that Nanomarkets does not mention Panasonic's OLED TV prototype that uses Sumitomo's P-OLED materials.

Nanomarkets released a new white paper in which they discuss whether there's a real market for novel encapsulation technologies (focusing on OLED and PV applications). While the total encapsulation market for these two applications is large (around $500 million in 2013, growing to $2 billion by 2019), most of it will be rigid glass.

In fact in 2015 only 21.3% of the market will use novel encapsulation, and this only grow to 26.9% by 2019. In terms of revenue, the novel encapsulation market for OLED sand PVs will grow from about $50 million in 2013 to just over $500 million in 2019, and most of it will be for PV applications, OLEDs will only reach about $100 by 2019.

Last week we posted about Nanomarket's three OLED lighting scenarios (which are mass adoption, niche market and the death of OLED lighting). Nanomarkets are still optimistic about the OLED lighting market, but they do not see mass adoption coming soon. In fact, in a recent blog post they say that no OLED lighting takeoff will happen till 2017. Previously they estimated that it may start in 2015.

This is partly a technical issue (everybody still suffers from low yields) but mostly because they do not see any company investing in real mass production facilities. Nanomarkets are looking for an OLED lighting champion - and they do not see one appearing any time soon. The do not see the OLED lighting revenues to reach more than a few hundred million dollars annually for quite a few more years, and in this case it does not make sense to invest billions in mass production facilities...

Nanomarkets posted an interesting article regarding the OLED lighting market. They present three scenarios. The first one is mass adoption of OLED lighting for the general consumer market. Nanomarket says that while the technology is advancing quickly, for mass market to happen, the OLED makers will need to make massive investment in production fabs.

Nanomarkets says say that an "OLED lighting champion" company must emerge to make this happen. They seem to think that this scenario does not seem likely in the next few years. Possible champions include Philips, Osram, Panasonic, GE, LG and Samsung. Nanomarkets does not believe that any one of those companies will be able to make a risky decision to invest the billions of dollars required.

Back in October 2012 Nanomarkets released a new report (Markets for OLED Encapsulation Materials 2012-2019), and now they published an executive summary of this report which is well worth a read. Nanomarkets forecasts that OLED encapsulation will grow from $20 million in 2013 to over $850 by 2019. Most of the growth will come from large area panels (for OLED TVs and lighting) and flexible displays, and the most popular technology will remain rigid glass in the foreseeable future.

Nanomarkets also discusses the challenge of pricing and investments in encapsulation companies, the main one being that the market for non-traditional (i.e. other than rigid-glass) encapsulation material will remain small (not exceeding $100 million until at least 2017).

Nanomarkets posted an interesting article on flexible glass (based on their Flexible Glass Market report). Basically they're saying that the opportunities for flexible glass have never been better, and they forecast that the market in 2013 will reach $125 million, and this will grow to over $2 billion before 2020.

Interestingly Nanomarkets says that the OLED market will start adopting flexible glass in 2013 - with $4 million in revenue (this will grow to $280 million by 2020). Perhaps Nanomarket thinks that Samsung will adopt flexible glass in their first YOUM flexible OLED based panels?

Nanomarkets released a new OLED lighting material report (OLED Lighting Materials Market Forecast 2013) in which they forecast that the OLED lighting materials market will surpass $1.3 billion in revenues in 2018, as OLED lighting moved beyond luxury luminaires and designer kits and into larger, general illumination applications. They say that the market value of functional OLED materials (emitters, hosts, blocking/transport/injection materials) will grow from $1.7 million in 2012 to over $1.1 billion in 2019.

Other key findings from this report:

Update: Nanomarkets released the executive summary of this report, well worth a read...

NanoMarkets released a new report on OLED encapsulation (Markets for OLED Encapsulation Materials 2012-2019) - in which they forecast that the sales of OLED encapsulation materials for OLED TVs and lighting will grow from virtually zero in 2012 to $625 million in 2019 ($150 for OLED TVs and $475 for OLED lighting).

Rigid cover glass sales will grow from $20 million in 2012 to $432 million in 2019. Flexible glass encapsulation will reach $270 million. Nontraditional encapsulation materials (such as ALD conformal coating, multilayer barriers, etc.) will remain quite small for some time.

Last month we reported that Nanomarkets released a new report titled OLED Materials Markets 2012, analyzing the opportunities for OLED materials suppliers in both the display and lighting sectors over the next eight years. Today Nanomarkets announced that they will host a Q&A session on that report on September 6 at 10:00 AM EDT (-5:00 GMT).

During the free session Nanomarkets analysts will present the findings from the report (the main one being the forecast that the total OLED material market will grow from $524 million in 2012 to over $7.4 billion in 2019). The author of the report (Dr, Jill Simpson) will present her insights into the opportunities available to suppliers of materials used in OLED panels and how the supply chain and overall market is evolving.

Nanomarkets released a new report titled OLED Materials Markets 2012. They analyze the opportunities for OLED materials suppliers in both the display and lighting sectors over the next eight years. According to the new report, the total OLED material market will grow from $524 million in 2012 to over $7.4 billion in 2019 - a CAGR of over 45%.

Nanomarkets say that the current commercial momentum will only be sustained if the material suppliers can close the remaining technology and cost gaps. The most important areas that need to be addressed according to Nanomarkets are blue emitter systems, efficiency, encapsulation, substrate technologies and high performance soluble materials.