South Korea's huge market share in OLED industry promotes technological progress of Chinese enterprises

China touch screen network news, Samsung as a rising star devoted himself to the OLED screen field, was once ridiculed by the Japanese industry, saying that Samsung's mass production of OLED screen is equivalent to standing upside down to climb Mount Fuji. However, Samsung has finally realized the mass production of OLED screens with persistent research and development and equipment investment, and now has become a global leader in the field of small and medium-sized OLED screens.
In 2017, Apple's iPhone X introduced OLED screens to bring demonstration effects, making OLED popular in the market. As the next generation of display technology, OLED has shown strong competitiveness and attracted many manufacturers to flood. Market research firm IHS Markit predicts that South Korea will still be the country with the highest market share of OLED display in the next few years. A few days ago, the Economic Daily reporter came to the Korean factory displayed by Samsung and LG to explore the secret of the Korean display industry leading the world.
OLED display gradually becomes mainstream
OLED is a display technology driven by attaching self-luminous organic materials to glass or plastic substrate, compared with liquid crystal display (LCD, it does not require components such as backlight, color filters, and polarization filters, so it is thinner. At the same time, because the material uses the natural light source, it can show almost natural colors, and has overwhelming advantages in contrast, outdoor visibility, visual angle, etc. In addition, OLED can further design flexible screens that can be bent and foldable.
Based on the above advantages, OLED screens have been widely used in mobile IT devices such as smartphones, high-definition TVs, tablets, smart watches, and sports smart rings, and the market is expanding. According to the data of OLED Industry Market Forecast and investment analysis report released by the forward-looking industry research institute, it is expected that the global shipments of OLED screens will increase to 0.75 billion in 2019, more than twice the shipments in 2016, the annual compound growth rate reached 32%; the market size will increase from US $11.3 billion in 2016 to US $29.3 billion in 2019, and the penetration rate is expected to exceed 50%. Moreover, due to the high difficulty of OLED screen technology and low yield, it is expected that the flexible OLED screen will be in short supply until 2020.
Korean companies come to the top
In the medium and small screen OLED field, Samsung Display can be said to be a leader, accounting for more than 95% of the global market. Samsung's huge advantage is due to its persistent R & D and investment in the past 10 years.
Samsung's predecessor was Samsung SDI, which successfully produced OLED screens as early as 2007, which was the world's first. At the beginning of Samsung's investment in OLED screen development, OLED screen industry was mainly dominated by Japanese companies. However, at that time, it was difficult to mass production due to problems such as life cycle and adhesion technology of luminous substances, and Japanese enterprises then terminated the research and development of OLED screens. In this case, Samsung, as a rising star, devoted itself to the OLED screen field and was once ridiculed by the Japanese industry, saying that Samsung's mass production of OLED screens is equivalent to standing upside down and climbing Mount Fuji.
However, Samsung finally realized the mass production of OLED screens with persistent research and development and equipment investment. With the use of OLED screen for Samsung Galaxy S series high-end mobile phones, small and medium-sized OLED has entered an explosive growth period.
On January 1, 2018, LG announced that it had successfully developed the world's first 88 inch 8 k oled panel, once again proving and consolidating its leadership in the global display industry. As the world's first large-size 8 k oled display product, the resolution of the panel is 4 times that of the current 4K ultra-high-definition TV, which can present an amazing and clear picture for users.
In the large-size OLED market, LG shows a monopoly and is the only manufacturer to achieve mass production. Large-sized OLED panels are mainly used in the field of TV. At present, smart TVs and Internet TVs are very popular, which also increases LG's display revenue. According to the data, in the second quarter of 2017, LG showed a total revenue of US $5.838 billion, an increase of 13% over the same period last year. Among them, the TV panel business accounted for 46% of the total revenue.
As a pioneer in the large-size OLED display market, LG Display successfully developed the world's first large-size 8 k oled panel, which further proved the technical advantages of OLED while leading the 8K display era. Jiang Renbing, chief technical officer of LG Display, said: in the future, LG Display will continue to accelerate the development of OLED products and continue to provide customers and markets with the required differentiated products.
Double increase investment in Chinese market
On December 26, 2017, LG announced that it will build a large-size OLED panel factory in Guangzhou, which is also LG's first OLED panel production line invested overseas. The joint venture has been approved by the Korean government. This is because China's oled TV sales have risen rapidly in recent years. According to data from Owei Yun Wang, from January 2017 to October, there were 7 months in which domestic oled TV retail sales increased by more than 100% year on year, of which October increased by 239% year on year.
Samsung shows that as early as 2015, it began to expand investment in Tianjin display factories to increase production capacity to meet the growing demand for small and medium-sized screen OLED from Chinese mobile phone manufacturers. Samsung shows that it will further strengthen its cooperation with Chinese manufacturers and support the needs of Chinese manufacturers through production bases such as Tianjin and Dongguan. Li Wei, senior vice president of Samsung's strategic marketing department, said.
With the addition of OLED production lines by Chinese manufacturers such as BOE, Huaxing Optoelectronics, Hehui optoelectronics and viino, IHS Markit predicts that China's growth and investment in OLED will accelerate in the next few years, by 2020, China's OLED display capacity will account for about 28% of the global production capacity, becoming the second largest supplier of OLED display in the world.
Liang Xinqing, executive vice president of the LCD Branch of China Optical Optoelectronics Industry Association, holds the same view: Samsung's successful application on small and medium-sized OLED screens has driven technological innovation in the whole industry, it also played a role in promoting China's display industry. China shows that with the advancement of technology, the industry will have a big development opportunity in OLED products.