Huawei - Page 2

DSCC says that OLED production will grow 94% in the Q2 2021, fueled by strong demand for OLED in smartphones, TVs and other devices - coupled with a recovery from the pandemic. Growth in OLED input area for small & medium displays is expected to grow 68%, while grow in OLED TV input area will grow by 134% over last year.

The chart above shows the total OLED (and mobile LCD) industry capacity. As you can see, flexible OLED capacity is growing - mainly from expansions by CSoT, Tianma and Visionox. There's also growth in rigid OLED capacity - from Everdisplay and JOLED.

China-based OLED maker Visionox reported good preliminary financial results for 2020, with increased sales and improved revenues and profits. The company expects its net profit to be around 141-210 million Yuan ($21-31 million USD), which will represent an increase of 120-227% over 2019.

The company says that its ability to innovate OLED technologies (specially the world's first OLED with an under-the-screen camera and the world's first 144Hz refresh rate OLED) enabled the company to increase its customer base and in 2020 it has added OPPO and Motorola as customers.

DSCC estimates that foldable OLED panel shipments will reach 3.1 million units in 2020, an increase of 454% from 2019. Revenues in 2020 will reach $462 million. DSCC decreased its estimates following the US restrictions on Huawei which prevented the launch of the Mate X2. The market will grow to 94 million panels by 2025 (a CAGR of 97% from 2018).

Samsung is clearly the leading foldable OLED device brand, with a market share of over 80% in the 2020. The two best selling smartphones in 2020 are the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and the Z Fold 2.

UBI Research says that the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with US sanctions against Huawei are lowering demand for OLED smartphone panels. UBI estimates that in Q3 2020 113 million OLED smartphone panels were shipped, 17.9% lower than in Q3 2019.

Even though Apple is expanding its OLED adoption, this is not enough to offset the decreased demand from the COVID-19 and Huawei sanctions, and UBI estimates that Q4 2019 will also be lower by around 18% from last year.

Last month it was reported that following the US government sanctions against Huawei, both Samsung Display and LG Display may not be able to sell OLED panels to Huawei any more, as these use drivers that are based on US-developed technology.

Samsung Display has applied to the US government to get an approval to export these OLEDs, and according to new reports from Korea SDC has obtained the approval. According to the report, the US agreed to this sale as Huawei is also buying OLED displays from Chinese-based producers which means that this is not a required import for Huawei.

The US government imposed sanctions against Huawei, which prevents the Chinese company to acquire components that use US-developed chips. According to a report from Korea, both Samsung Display and LG Display will have to stop supplying OLED displays to Huawei as these use drivers that are based on US-developed technology.

Samsung Display has applied for a US US Department of Commerce license which will allow it to export the technology to Huawei. LG Display decided not to apply for the license, at least for now, as its OLED sales to Huawei are limited in any case.

According to reports from China, Huawei is starting to develop its own OLED driver ICs - and will start mass producing these chips later in 2020

It seems that Huawei aims to increase its self-sufficiency (especially with the US sanctions in place). In addition, the company believes its own chips will outperform the chips supplied to Huawei by third party and will enable it to improve its smartphone design.

According to a report from Korea, BOE will start producing AMOLED displays with on-cell touch, and ship the first such panels to Huawei to be used in its Mate 40 flagship smartphone. The Mate 40 is expected by October 2020, and BOE will start producing these panels soon.

Huawei Mate 30 Pro

BOE is not the only OLED maker to supply to Huawei's Mate 40 series - Korea's Samsung and LG Display will also ship similar panels to Huawei, some of these will use on-cell touch and some will use add-on touch panels, this depends on the Mate 40 model.

Last month Chinese OLED producer Visionox launched an under-the-OLED camera technology, branded as InV See - which enables a selfie camera in a full-screen OLED smartphone. According to new report from China, Visionox has already shipped InV See displays to Huawei and Xiaomi which will launch smartphones with these displays soon.

The report suggests that Visionox started to ship these displays in the second half of 2019 - and these deals were worth over 3.5 billion yuan (around $500 million USD).

DSCC says that OLED revenues in Q1 2020 were $6.7 billion (up 24% from Q1 2019, but down 18% from Q4 2019). Both Samsung and BOE gained market share in the quarter, as LGD had a weak quarter.

DSCC sees the entire OLED market reaching $33 billion in 2020 (up 18% from 2019). Smartphone OLED sales will reach $26.6 billion, mostly led by a growth in flexible OLED sales. The OLED TV market will grow 19% to 4 million units in 2020. DSCC sees the laptop OLED market increasing significantly in 2020.