OLED production - Page 19

Towards the end of 2019 LG Display started to supply Apple with 6.1" film-touch OLED flexible displays for its 2020 iPhone, and IHS Markit now says that these shipments propelled LGD's OLED smartphone market share to 10.8% in Q4 2019 (up from only 2.1% in Q3 2019).

In fact LGD now says that mobile OLED revenues make up for 36% of its total revenues in Q4 - which is higher than its OLED TV revenues for the first time ever.

Korean ETNews reports that Samsung is expecting higher demand for foldable OLED displays, and the company decided to increase its monthly production capacity from 260,000 units to around 600,000 by the end of May 2020, and over a million displays by the end of the year.

ETNews also reports that Samsung Electronics is planning to launch its third foldable smartphone later in 2020, and Chinese phone makers are also requesting foldable displays from SDC.

LG Display's original plan was to start producing OLED TV panels at its 8.5-Gen OLED fab in Guangzhou in October 2019, but the company faced technical issues - and even though LGD said it fixed these issues and production will start by the end of January 2020, that didn't happen.

According to a new report from Korea, the CoronaVirus outbreak caused LGD further delays, and mass production is now expected to start in 'early' Q2 2020 - so April 2020 at the earliest.

LG Display originally planned to start producing OLED TV panels at its 8.5-Gen OLED fab in Guangzhou in October 2019, but LGD faced technical issues and production was delayed to Q1 2020. Last month LGD said it finally fixed its technical issues and production will start by the end of January 2020 - but here we are at the middle of February and production hasn't started yet.

LGD's original plan was to ship over 6 million OLED TV panels in 2020 - which include the smaller 48" OLED TV panels launched at CES 2020. It seems certain now that LGD will not be able to meet its goals. IHS also reduced its 2020 OLED TV production forecast from 5 million units to 4.5 million.

Taiwan's AU Optronics says that while the company still produces OLED displays, and has the capacity to mass produce flexible OLEDs as well, the company sees the flexible (and foldable) OLED market still at an "initial stage in terms of market acceptance and cost structure", and the company does not have any plans at the moment to invest in further OLED capacity.

AUO says that it has "accumulated its OLED expertise for quite some time" - and indeed AUO has been developing transparent OLEDs for AR applications, foldable displays and has lately started to invest in ink-jet printing processes.

On August 2019 LG Display announced that it started producing OLED TV panels at its 8.5-Gen OLED fab in Guangzhou, China. But later it was reported that LGD faced technical issues and production did not begin as planned in October 2019 - and LGD delayed production to Q1 2020.

According to a new report from Korea, LGD finally fixed its technical issues and managed to optimize the yields at the new fab. Mass production will begin in Guangzhou by the end of this month.

In November 2019 ETNews reported that LG Display will supply Apple with 6.1" film-touch OLED flexible displays for its 2020 iPhones. Samsung will also supply the same displays (in a 50:50 split) in addition to 5.4" and 6.7" OLEDs that will support Samsung's on-cell touch (Y-OCTA).

According to a new report by ETNews, LG Display is set to update its E6 flexible OLED production line to support two new technologies - LTPO and on-cell touch, which LG calls TOC. ETNews says that LG's E6 line is dedicated to Apple - currently it produces 6.5" 2688x1242 OLEDs used in the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

On August 2019 LG Display announced today that it started producing OLED TV panels at its 8.5-Gen OLED fab in Guangzhou, China. But in October it was reported that LGD's yields at the new fab were still low (50-60%) and mass production did not start as planned.

A new report from Korea suggests that LGD still did not manage to stabilize the new fab, and mass production is now delayed to after the first quarter of 2020. LGD's original plans were to produce around 5.5 million OLED in 2020, but that plan assumed the Guangzhou fab will be in full production rate by the end of 2019. LGD already lowered its 2019 OLED TV production capacity due to the Guangzhou delay.

A few days ago we reported that Cadillac announced that its 2021 Escalade, to be unveiled on February 2020, will sport a 38-inch curved OLED display. A new report from Korea's Hankyung says that the producer of this display is LG Display.

Hankyung says that LG is pushing its automotive OLED displays, and will also supply OLED displays to Mercedes-Benz's 2020 E-Class car. LG is not alone as many display makers are developing and producing automotive OLED displays and aiming to take a part of this important market. To learn more about OLEDs for the automotive market, click here.

The government of the Guangzhou province in China announced that it aims to help its local display industry and have allocated large funds - up to 2 billion RMB (around $285 million USD) in subsidies per company. The goal is to help companies invest in production of emerging display technologies - including OLEDs, Micro-LEDs, QD-LEDs, 3D displays, e-paper displays, graphene enhanced display technologies and more.

The subsidies will be given to companies that start trial production, and when mass production begins.