Japan-based Yano Research Institute estimates that following Sony's launch of its CLEDIS display, the Micro-LED market will finally emerge this year. Yano sees the micro-LED market growing from $7 million in 2017 through $14 million in 2018 and $224 million by 2020.

The fast growth will continue, and the micro-LED market wil reach $4.5 billion by 2025 - that's a total growth of over 65,000% from 2017 to 2025.

PlayNitride's CEO, Charles Li, says that Micro-LED displays are not as challenging as originally expected, and the company now aims to start trial production of Micro-LED displays in the second half of 2017. The company has mass transfer and placement yield rates of over 99% in its lab.

In PlayNitride's R&D setup, it takes about 10 seconds to transfer and place 200,000 LEDs - which means that a 5" panel will take only 10 minutes to produce. However the cost for a single smartphone panel could reach about $300 - much higher than the cost of even the highest-end flexible OLED. Possible applications where Micro-LED displays could succeed commercially at this stage include smartwatches, VR / AR, automotive and transparent displays.