Demand Driver
The market for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels for monitors has grown more than 10 times in the last two years according to a market research firm. The penetration rate of OLED panels in the gaming monitor market has risen sharply on the back of strong demand.
According to market research firm OMDIA on July 10, global shipments of OLED panels for monitors are expected to grow fivefold, from 160,000 units in 2022 to 800,000 units this year and to 1.74 million units next year. The market has expanded more than tenfold in just two years. OMDIA analyzed that shipments of OLED panels for monitors will exceed 2.3 million units in 2025 and reach 2.77 million units in 2026.
The rapid growth of the market for OLED panels for monitors is driven by gaming monitor market demand. OLED panels offer distinct advantages as gaming monitors over traditional liquid crystal display (LCD) panels as the former can offer sharper and more stereoscopic image quality and faster response times.
As more gaming monitors with high refresh rates in the 200-300 Hz range, large screens, and OLED panels have been introduced, the share of OLED panels in the 4K gaming monitor market has grown rapidly. From 7.3 percent in 2022, the share of OLED has grown to 32.1 percent this year driven by a number of new OLED gaming monitor launches. Next year, the percentage is expected to rise to 54 percent, and by 2025, it will reach 61 percent, making OLED panel monitors the mainstream of the gaming monitor market.
The display industry is waiting to see if OLED panels for monitors will be a breakthrough for the stagnant information technology display market. The market for OLED panels for monitors is currently dominated by Korean companies, mainly Samsung Display and LG Display. Japanese company JOLED shipped RGB OLED panels for monitors previously but dropped out of the race when it went bankrupt in March. Some Chinese companies are considering entering the market but they are behind Samsung Display and LG Display, as OLED panel technology has a higher barrier to entry than OLED panels for smartphones and their main business item is LCD monitor panels.
Samsung Display currently supplies QD-OLED panels for computer monitors to major monitor manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and Dell. LG Display entered the market with a 40-inch OLED panel in 2022 and has been mass-producing 27-inch and 45-inch ultrawide OLED panels specialized for gaming since the beginning of this year, supplying them to LG Electronics, Asus, and Corsair. Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have also introduced gaming products through their specialized “Odyssey” and “Ultragear” gaming device brands.