OLED-Info newsletter

Equipment makers report increased OLED orders

Several equipment and component makers reported increased OLED activity in May. First up was Orbotech, which received new optical system bookings for two OLED fabs in two different countries - and it recently delivered a system to a third fab in a third country. The company says that this is a "clear evidence that OLED is increasing its penetration across the industry".

Semiconductor IC designer Magnachip saw "exceptionally strong" demand for its AMOLED drivers. There was a surge in AMOLED display driver demand in Q4 and this carried over to Q1 - and continues to gather momentum. MagnaChip's AMOLED revenue in Q1 grew 42% from Q1 2015 and 63% from Q4 2015.

Finally, we have Japan-based Dai Nippon Printing. The world's leader in evaporation mask (FMM) production announced it will invest $54.6 million to triple its evaporation mask production capacity so it could meet the demand of the expanding OLED market. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, DNP's market share in the evaporation mask market is over 50%.

Samsung has no immediate plans for OLED TVs

Samsung Electronics' president and TV chief Kim Hyun-seok said that Samsung has no immediate plans to produce OLED TVs. Kim says that there has been little progress with OLED TVs, and production is still tricky and expensive. In fact, Kim said that "I wouldn’t say OLED is our future direction".

Kim has high hopes for Samsung's Quantum-Dot LCD TV technology, and sees it progressing faster than OLEDs. Samsung claims that its quantum dot TV already outpaces current OLED TVs in terms of picture quality and brightness.

It seems that Samsung wishes to counter the recent rumors about its re-entry into the OLED TV market. In January 2016 Samsung confirmed it is developing OLED TV panels, and a report from Korea stated that the company is discussing a large investment (around $3 billion US) into a new OLED TV panel fab. This was again reported in April.

Sharp and Innolux to integrate their OLED business units

A few weeks after Sharp agreed to sell a two-thirds stake to Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) for $3.5 billion, the Taiwanese company is starting to integrate Sharp's display business with Innolux, Foxconn Taiwanese display arm.

A new report suggests that Innolux's chairman Tuan Hsing-chien has resigned from his roles at Innolux, and will head to Sharp to help integrate the two display makers. Tuan will help Sharp and Innolux focus on IGZO backplanes and OLED diisplays - aiming to enhance the competitiveness of Sharp's LCD business - and find opportunities for cooperation between the two companies.

Tuan says that both IGZO and OLED are a "major consideration for the investment in Sharp". Tuan also reveals that Innolux now aims to start OLED mass production in 2018 (in its 4.5-Gen fab), and Sharp will start mass production a year later (2019) in a 6-Gen fab.

Read more here

First impressions from SID DisplayWeek 2016

The 2016 SID DisplayWeek conference that took place last week in San Francisco was an impressive trade show. We are now on the way back home but couldn't wait to share some of our thoughts. We will post several in-depth stories from DisplayWeek, but here are our first impressions.

It is clear that OLED technology has graduated into a more mature technology, and almost all display makers (including Samsung, LG, Tianma and BOE) that presented at SID demonstrated some OLED displays. The most impressive display, in our opinion, was LG's 77" 4K HDR OLED TV. The image quality was simply superb! It seems that most people we talked to agree on that point - and indeed the LG TV won the best-of-show award.

Read more here.

OLED market reports updated to May 2016

In the beginning of May we published new versions of all our market reports - that cover the transparent, automotive, microdisplay and flexible OLED markets. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to May 2016.

The four updated reports are:

• The Flexible OLED Market Report
• The Transparent OLED Market Report
• The OLED Microdisplays Market Report
• The OLED Automotive Market Report:

Our market reports come with one year of free upgrades. Existing customers, please contact us or reply to this mail regarding discounts or free updates.

A fully bendable phone with a graphene-based screen was demonstrated in China

The market will grow at 46% CAGR, from $677 in 2016 to $4.3 billion in 2021

Kateeva new investors include BOE, TCL and other Chinese companies

The Korea Times says that Tesla wants to use flexible OLED panels in future cars

Cynora announced it has made significant progress in its highly efficient blue OLED emitter material development effort

The OLED Association says that Truly will start mass producing AMOLEDs in its 4.5-Gen fab in September 2016

Audi says that its 2017 A8 car will adopt several new technologies - including OLED displays and taillights

Universal Display reported $1.9 million in net income on revenues of $29.7 million

According to ETNews, LG Electronics is set to release the 77" Signature OLEDG6 TV in Korea soon for 45 million KRW (around $38,000).

Reports and leaks suggest that Apple's MacBook Pro will come with a small OLED touch-pad above the keyboard

The FGC fund offered $750 million to buy the German-based equipment maker

Reports from China suggest that Skyworth sold only 4,000 OLED TVs during China's golden week celebration

Lenovo's flagship 2016 phone has a 5.2-inch Super AMOLED display

A Chinese-market VR headset that uses AMOLED panels

A high-end smartphone with a 5.7-inch Full-HD Super AMOLED display

A china-bound smartphone with a 5.2-inch Full-HD Super AMOLED

A china-bound smartphone with a 5.7-inch Full-HD Super AMOLED