Five panel manufacturers, including samsung display, LG display (LGD), boe, sharp and Japan display (JDI), are optimistic about the rising demand for introducing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) into smartphones, recently they are happened to accelerate the layout of OLED, Samsung has also restarted OLED expansion plans at its A4 plant trying to flip global display technology.

Industry insiders point out that the world's top five panel factories launched advanced display technology and capacity war£¬Taiwan panel manufacturer Youda and Qunchuang have no market for OLED panels for mobile phones, being afraid to stuck in the high - level area of the panel deadlock, unable to gain a foothold in the industry.

According to industry insiders, Samsung display will resume production at its A4 OLED plant as early as October  thanks to new customers

The plant, originally the l7-1 liquid crystal line, was supposed to begin production early this year, but plans have been delayed for months because of shrinking demand.

Sources said£ºSamsung recently signed a supply deal with a new Chinese customer. The customer's touch-screen display, called y-octa, is currently available only to samsung electronics. The monthly capacity of the A4 factory is 30000pcs of  six generations OLED panels£¬However, it remains to be seen whether the plant will be able to resume production as planned, as it will take months of trial runs to restart the shuttered facility.

From the latter part of last year to the beginning of this year, due to the off-season£¬samsung received orders significantly reduced¡£In particular, the A3 factory, which supplies panels for Apple's iphones, operating rates drop to 10%. But recently, the A2 and A3 factories have been operating at nearly 80 percent of their full capacity, due to apple's upcoming models and growing demand from Chinese smartphone makers.

South Korean panel maker LG Display (LGD) plans to expand its production of OLED panels for televisions to 4 million units in 2019, a 40 percent increase from its 2018 forecast of 2.8 million units, hoping to combat liquid crystal Display (LCD) and ensure dominance in a TV market dominated by Chinese manufacturers by boosting the popularity of OLED

Large OLED panels for televisions are difficult to produce, and LGD now controls nearly 100 percent of the market. In addition to its own group, LG electronics, LGD also supplies OLED panels to Japanese manufacturers such as Sony and Panasonic and Chinese TV manufacturers.

To increase production of OLED panels for televisions, LGD is increasing its investment in OLED equipment. LGD takes about 5 trillion Korea won invest in OLED manufacturing equipment in 2017, among the total of 9 trillion won in equipment investment in 2018, over 80% is usde in OLED.

According to the British research corporation Euromonitor, Worldwide OLED TVS sold 1.53 million units, sales are less than 1% of LCD TVS, but have more than doubled since 2016.

According to LGD's financial information release on July 25,low panel prices dragged down LGD's profits in the last quarter (april-june 2018), it swung to a 228 billion won loss from an 804 billion won surplus a year earlier. LGD posted its first loss in six years in the first quarter(January-March), the revenue loss amount of last quarter ballooned to two to three times of the level in the first quarter in 2018. However, LGD stresses that it will continue to shift its focus from liquid crystal display (LCD) to OLED.

South Korean media said on August 16,  LGD have shipped 1.3 million large-size OLED panels from January to June in 2018, compared to the shipment of 600,000 in the same period last year,increasing more than two times

LGD indicateds that the shipment of large-size OLED panels significant increase in the first half year of 2018, sales of 55 ", 65 "and 77" products grew at the same rate, OLED division is expected to report its first profit in the second half of this year.

Industry insiders believe that the surge in LGD large-size OLED panel shipments is mainly due to the growth of the global OLED camp and the popularity of OLED TVS in the end market.

In addition, LGD has signed a deal with Apple to supply 24 million OLED panels for next year's new iPhone, which means samsung's monopoly on iPhone OLED panels is coming to an end

According to industry sources, LGD will start running its flexible OLED production line E6-1 in pazhou in the fourth quarter of this year. E6 is called "Apple dedicated production line", its monthly production capacity is 15,000 tablets,combined with the turtle tail E5 production line, pazhou E2 production line, then the  capacity of small and medium sized OLED panels will reach  35,000 units. Under an agreement with apple, LGD will begin supplying OLED panels to Apple in the second half of 2018 so it can produce the next generation of iPhone devices.

LG Display is likely to secure most of Apple's orders for 6.5-inch OLED panels in 2019, as the E6 plant's yield improves, while boosting its OLED panel shipments to 10 million units this year.

Due to its bright future, OLED screen market naturally attracts numerous domestic panel manufacturers, among which BOE is one of the main players.

BOE Chengdu six-generation OLED production line announced advance mass production in Oct.26 last year, it is the first domestic production line capable of mass production of flexible OLED screen,most of the devices are similar to samsung's six-generation OLED production lines,the core steam plating machine also uses the same supplier as samsung. Boe has obtained two steam plating machine devices

In August this year, BOE Vice president Zhangyu said ,the product yield of BOE Chengdu plant is about 70% after several months of testing, which is close to samsung's mass production level. It's even closer to 80%. As production ramps up, BOE's OLED screen costs will get lower and lower.

Boe may not supply OLED display panels to Apple until as early as 2020, according to the Wall Street journal. Reports say despite the difficulty of OLED mass production, even samsung has been plagued by low quality rates, but BOE is still very likely to be Apple's supplier of OLED screens

BOE Vice president Zhangyu said that Boe has supplied OLED display panels to huawei's premium Mate RS and expects to offer more screens to several major customers later this year,the product yield of BOE Chengdu plant is about 70% after several months of testing. Industry experts say this represents close to steady volume production levels.

According to a report from the display research division of IHS Markit, a data analysis company, Boe has been the world's largest supplier of large LCD screens since last year, but its ranked only fifth in 2014

The Wall Street Journal: Boe, which is growing rapidly in the display industry, is keen to demonstrate its manufacturing capabilities with a technically challenging product,that means domestic panels are a big win in catching up with advanced display technology from South Korea and Japan.While Apple is notoriously picky about high-quality components, BOE has been the only Chinese supplier of display panels to Apple in the past, That gives BOE the confidence to overcome the difficulties of producing OLED panels for Apple.

In July 23, person familiar with the Wall Street journal report said, Boe expects to start supplying OLED screens to Apple as early as 2020,Boe is already supplying OLED screens for huawei's high-end Mate RS phone and expects to increase supplies to several major customers later this year. Reports say despite the difficulty of OLED mass production, even samsung has been plagued by low quality rates, but BOE is still very likely to be Apple's supplier of OLED screens.

As boe's OLED production line continues to climb and upgrade, and the scale of production continues to increase, samsung's monopoly position is becoming more and more dangerous.

According to Japanese media reports, sharp's high-end Aquos smartphone with its own OLED panel is expected to hit the market in the fourth quarter of 2018.

According to relevant information, sharp confirmed that it began mass production of OLED panels in June when announcing its quarterly results to the end of June 2018 on July 31, 2018.

Sharp has said it will begin mass production of OLED panels in the summer of 2018 using equipment supplied by foxconn and sharp joint venture sakai display (SDP).

According to the asahi shimbun, sharp has invested tens of billions of yen in retooling its OLED manufacturing lines at the mie and sakai plants,the OLED panels will run on the high-end models of its AQUOS brand, in order to show the quality of OLED panels, the goal is to sell them to outside companies such as apple and Chinese smartphone makers in the future.

Sharp is likely to compete with panel makers like samsung for iPhone OLED orders in 2019, after mass-producing OLED. Industry insiders believe hon hai is now the largest manufacturer of OLED iphones and the main supplier of the two OLED iphones in 2018,Hon hai is the biggest winner  for assembling OLED iphones.

After Sharp's mass-produced OLED panels, if they can supply it to Apple in 2019, which will help hon hai meet its goal of assembling the iPhone in one piece, reducing hon hai assembly costs, improving gross margin,Hon hai will be the biggest beneficiary.

And according to data provided by IHS Markit, Samsung now accounts for 90.1% of the world's small and medium-sized OLED panel market, while LG Display has a smaller share of 7.7%, 

JDI, which focuses on small and medium-sized LCD panels, being responsible for producing OLED, But JDI relies too much on smartphones and apple, and the drop in orders for apple's LCD panels has had a significant impact on JDI's performance. JDI suffered its worst loss since apple's iPhone X adopted OLED last year. This year JDI  lost many Chinese smartphone brand customers  due to OLED 

But JDI does not give up producing OLED. JDI showed a401PPI OLED in China last year, hoping to introduce the OLED product to Chinese smartphone brands. JDI showed a 401PPI OLED in China last year, hoping to introduce the OLED product to Chinese smartphone brands. Kenji onishi, China's general manager of JDI, revealed in an interview last year that JDI had not stopped OLED development, Small batch trial production will be carried out in the first quarter of 2018, and then batch production will be carried out according to the market situation and the progress of the factory.

In fact, JDI OLED is not going well.  JDI didn't show OLED in China in the first half year of 2018, it also didn't announce any new information about OLED,JDI is busy with strategic transformation,  busy with reducing reliance on smartphones, busy with reducing losses,it seems to be no time for OLED.So far only some Japanese media have mentioned JDI's OLED layout: JDI hopes to find a partner to finance its mass production, JDI plans to produce OLED panels for smartphones by 2019.

Compared with South Korea, Japan and China's big manufacturers aggressively entering the OLED market, au and innolux have said they will not follow the OLED market, but will focus on wearable applications.

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