[Agile Electronics Story] Growing OLED Market... Domestic Companies Defend with Technology and Quality

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee]‘Agile Electronics Stories’ is a column that keenly examines small details about electronic and mechanical products and devices. From hot new products frequently appearing in advertisements and news, to nostalgic items, and puzzling product and industry terms and news, we will kindly cover them with the heart of a beginner.

It has been 20 years since the display market leadership shifted from CRT to LCD. The leadership in the display market is now flowing again to OLED.

The domestic display industry is focusing on widening the technological and quality gap as one of the strategies to maintain its global OLED market share and gain an advantage over overseas competitors.

Recently, reports related to the display industry have emerged stating that their OLEDs received excellent evaluations from globally renowned verification organizations. Quality improvement is closely linked to the consolidation strategy in the already established OLED market.

Domestic Companies Hold Overwhelming OLED Market Share... Chinese Companies Also Preparing to Catch Up

Next-Generation TV Introduced by LG Display: 88-Inch 8K OLED TV

Samsung Display and LG Display hold overwhelming shares in the OLED market. LG Display commands over 100% market share in the large OLED market for TVs, while Samsung Display holds over 80% in the small and medium-sized OLED market. The figure for large OLEDs for TVs is possible because LG Display is the sole producer. Samsung Display has also been investing in OLED-based QD displays since last year.

OLEDs used in smartphones are not only used by domestic smartphone companies. Overseas market research firms forecast that the global OLED product market will grow by 40-50% compared to last year. According to Counterpoint Research, global OLED smartphone shipments are expected to increase by 46% this year, surpassing 600 million units. Additionally, IHS Markit projects OLED TV shipments to increase by 50% this year to 4.5 million units compared to last year.

With news that Apple will equip its new smartphone models with OLED, Chinese companies are also showing signs of producing OLEDs. In particular, BOE, a leading Chinese display company, is actively moving to produce OLEDs. Last month, BOE signed a contract with the domestic company AP System, which supplies laser annealing (ELA) equipment for low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) substrates used in OLEDs.

"It is natural for competitors to increase as the market expands"... Domestic Companies Accelerate OLED Technology and Quality Development

Samsung Electronics Galaxy S20 equipped with Samsung Display's latest OLED for smartphones

As competitors increase, competition intensifies and product prices tend to fall. For example, the entry of Chinese companies into the OLED market could be fatal to domestic companies' performance. Chinese companies such as BOE and CSOT, supported by Chinese government subsidies, flooded the market with volume, causing LCD product prices to drop.

Although the recent spread of COVID-19 caused disruptions in LCD production by Chinese companies, leading to price increases, domestic companies are accelerating OLED supply, new product launches, and quality improvements. This is interpreted as a strategy to widen the gap with Chinese companies, who are followers. A representative from the display industry said, "It is natural for competitors to increase as the leadership shifts to other products and the market size grows," adding, "To maintain the leadership in the OLED market that we have secured, we are focusing more on quality improvement and releasing differentiated products."

Domestic companies are enhancing competitiveness by applying technologies such as 4K, 8K for excellent image quality, as well as flexible and rollable displays. Furthermore, OLED products are being launched not only for TVs and smartphones but also for automotive displays. LG Electronics announced last month that it will supply the 'Digital Cockpit' system, consisting of a high-resolution P-OLED (Plastic OLED) display and a proprietary integrated infotainment system, to the 2021 Cadillac Escalade vehicle.

Efforts to reduce harmful effects such as blue light and lower power consumption are also ongoing in the industry. Domestic display companies have developed special devices that reduce or minimize the wavelength of blue light and applied them to OLED displays. OLEDs operate on the principle that each pixel emits its own light to express color, turning off pixels to display black, which makes them more power-efficient than LCDs that pass all light through color filters. However, domestic display companies are devising methods to achieve high image quality with even lower power consumption than existing products to strengthen competitiveness.

Efforts to enhance the OLED display technology of domestic companies are also confirmed by certification results from overseas certification bodies. Samsung Display recently announced the results of submitting the latest smartphone OLED used in Samsung Electronics' flagship smartphone Galaxy S20 to global certification bodies SSG and UL. The new OLED product received 'Eye Care' and 'Energy Saving' display certifications from SGS and UL, respectively, by reducing the blue light ratio and power consumption compared to LCDs and existing Samsung Display OLEDs. LG Display's P-OLED also received the 'Eye Comfort Display' certification from the global certification body TUV Rheinland for the first time for automotive display panels, for aspects such as ▲light reflectance ▲blue light emission ▲image quality.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.