Era of OLED
According to market research firm IHS, Samsung Display supplied 98.38 million smartphone OLED panels in the second quarter of this year to record a year-on-year growth of 81.5%.
The amount had edged down from 52.6 million to 52 million between the first two quarters of last year. However, it rebounded to 71.7 million in the third quarter of 2015 and jumped to 77.5 million and 88.6 million in the following quarters before reaching a new high in the second quarter of this year.
Until recently, LCD was the most prevalent form of smartphone display. However, Oppo and Vivo recently released OLED smartphones and Apple is expected to use OLED panels for its iPhone to be released next year as well. At present, Samsung Display accounts for 99% of the global smartphone OLED market.
In the meantime, Chinese manufacturers showed an excellent performance in the previous quarter in the global smartphone LCD panel market. BOE climbed a notch to second and Tianma maintained its fourth position. Meanwhile, Japan Display and LG Display fell from second to third and from third to fifth. Their respective shipments fell 8.4% and 18.6% from a year ago, too.
The market research firm is estimating that the ratio of OLED panels has increased to at least 25% in the second quarter of this year in the global smartphone panel market. According to its forecast, the global smartphone OLED panel supply amount is likely to reach 366.88 million this year, 455.152 million in 2017, 558.935 million in 2018 and 663.656 million in 2019.