Apple becomes the largest buyer of OLED panels to accelerate infiltration and take advantage of the rise of domestic suppliers

Research firm Omdia released a report today predicting a rebound in OLED panel shipments and an increase in smartphone OLED penetration in 2021. At the same time, Apple will overtake Samsung to become the largest buyer of OLED panels and the highest adoption rate of OLED. BOE, TCL and other mainland manufacturers supply Apple and Samsung, and domestic OLED overtaking is just around the corner.

OLED panel shipments of smartphones and smartphones rebounded strongly

According to the data, OLED display technology is a new generation of flat panel display technology after LCD, which has multiple advantages such as low power consumption, light and thin, visual angle headlights, so it is favored by electronic equipment manufacturers.

Last year, shipments of OLED panels fell 3 per cent compared with 2019 due to novel coronavirus's epidemic, lack of core and falling smartphone shipments. However, Omdia said it is still optimistic about 2021, and expects OLED shipments to reach 584.5 million this year, an increase of 28% over 2020. This is due to a number of factors:

The smartphone market is picking up, and shipments will reach 1.3716 billion this year.

Apple, OPPO and other smartphones expand the adoption rate of OLED panels.

The growth of folding screen smartphones (for example, Huawei has reported that it plans to launch three new folding smartphones in the second half of this year, and the industry considers OLED panels to be the most valuable).

The expansion of Chinese OLED panel manufacturers;

A large number of domestic mobile phone manufacturers use rigid OLED panels to replace LTPS;

In some high-end and low-power market segments, LTPO backplanes have begun to replace LTPS.

It has become the mainstream for big mobile phone manufacturers to snap up OLED.

Due to the shortage of driver chips, the research and development of mobile phone manufacturers has shifted from model-oriented to resource-oriented-choosing to seize high-quality resources first, and then develop new models according to the resources. It was reported last week that Samsung showed that the OLED had been snapped up by mobile phone manufacturers, and Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo were ready to sign 2022 OLED purchase contracts with Samsung in advance.

Apple took the crown in the OLED shopping spree, becoming the largest buyer of smartphone OLED panels, buying 169 million tablets this year, up 47.6 per cent from last year. That figure has exceeded Samsung's purchase of 157 million OLED tablets this year. Apple's OLED suppliers include Samsung display (110 million), LG display (50 million) and BOE (9 million).

In addition, according to forecasts, the total adoption rate of OLED panels by smartphone brands and contract manufacturers will rise from 35 per cent last year to this year's 43%--OLED will become the mainstream of smartphone displays.

Among them, Apple will also surpass Samsung with 78% adoption of OLED panels in 2021. Although LCD panels were mostly used in iPhone 11 and previous iPhone models, Apple's OLED panel adoption rate has been rising over the past three years. IPhone 12 models that were withdrawn last year are all equipped with OLED panels; iPhone 13, which is expected to be launched in the second half of this year, will only use flexible OLED.

Win a number of orders and the rise of domestic OLED is just around the corner.

Since 2016, the state has formulated and issued a number of policies to promote the development of OLED technology research and development and supporting industries. Under the favorable policies, the prosperity of the OLED industry has increased, and domestic OLED production capacity has been released. According to industry insiders, shipments of smartphone OLED panels will reach 585 million in 2021. It is estimated that by 2022, the total output of mainland OLED panels will be close to 45%. The overtaking of domestic OLED panels has entered the countdown, and China is expected to take South Korea to become the world's largest supplier of OLED panels.

At the end of last month, South Korean media reported that display leader BOE had entered Samsung's smartphone supply chain and would supply flexible OLED panels to some models of Samsung's folding phones from the second half of this year. In addition, BOE is also a supplier of OLED panels to Apple, OPPO and Huawei.

BOE is not the only domestic OLED manufacturer that supplies smartphone leaders. TCL Huaxing also supplies OLED panels for Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO and Motorola. Tianma and Vicino are also on the list of Xiaomi suppliers.

Driven by demand, domestic panel manufacturers have put into production of OLED panels, among which flexible AMOLED is the most important. At the beginning of this year, BOE released a plan for a fixed increase of 20 billion yuan, of which 6 billion will be used to increase capital and build the sixth generation AMOLED production line, with a design capacity of 48000 pieces per month. Vicino has invested in 3 AMOLED panel production lines and 2 matching module production lines. Hexui Optoelectronics plans to raise 10 billion yuan for the production capacity expansion of the sixth generation AMOLED production line. In addition, TCL and other manufacturers also have plans to put AMOLED into production.