Last year, Samsung Display’s OLED market share decreased by 13.4 percentage points from the previous year to 68.2%. This is due to China’s OLED offensive. The display industry is interested in whether Samsung Display will make new investments in small and medium-sized OLEDs in 3 years.
According to UBI Research, a market research firm on the 8th, Samsung Display recorded sales of $22.3 billion (about 25,321.7 billion won) in the OLED market last year, down 15.8% from the previous year. The market share was only 68.2%, down 13.4 percentage points over the same period. This is because Chinese display makers have had a negative impact on Samsung Display’s OLED panel unit price as they increased the shipments of OLED panels for smartphones.
UBI Research said, “The iPhone and Galaxy S20 OLED unit prices, which support the OLED market for smartphones, have decreased from 2019. This is because OLED shipments by Chinese panel makers have led to a decrease in OLED unit prices of Samsung Display.” The shipment was 390 million units, a decrease of 40 million units compared to 430 million units in 2019, and sales decreased due to a drop in selling prices,” he said.
“On the other hand, BOE’s 2020 OLED sales amounted to $1.86 billion, which was $750 million compared to 2019,” he said. “The market share rose to third place with 5.7% (2.3% point increase compared to the previous year).” Added.
In the market, Samsung Display is expected to stop producing 7th-generation LCD panels from the third quarter of this year in response to the offensive in China and make new investments in 6th-generation small and medium-sized OLED lines (tentative name A4-2).
In particular, this is because major customer Apple is expected to increase the proportion of OLED installations in the iPhone series to be released this year, while also starting to apply OLED panels to iPads.
According to DS Investment & Securities, Apple is expected to increase the proportion of OLEDs for iPhones released this year to 79%, up 21 percentage points over last year. In the display industry, there is even a story that Apple has already commissioned Samsung Display and LG Display to develop an OLED panel for the iPad.
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Yoo-jong Song, a researcher at DS Investment & Securities, said, “Samsung Display’s expansion this year (expected to be 30K per month) is inevitable even considering Apple’s OLED smartphone shipments. It is expected that production of 7th generation LCD panels will be stopped from the quarter, and new investments will be made with the 6th generation small and medium-sized OLED panel line (A4-2).”
Researcher Song said, “Apple is expected to install OLED panels on some of the iPad Pro models from 2022, and OLED iPads are expected to be released in earnest from 2023.” OLED iPad volume is expected to be at least 12 million units. This requires additional investment of at least 30K/month, so new investment in A5 fab is expected to be executed from 2022.”