China’s Chasing

China has started production of the 6th-generation flexible OLED.
China has started production of the 6th-generation flexible OLED.

 

China has started the chase of South Korea to dominate the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) market. China’s Tianma has started production of the 6th-generation flexible OLED, which is used in smartphones, for the second time in the world after Samsung Display.

According to foreign media including Taiwan’s DigiTimes on April 26, Tianma Micro-electronics Co., a China-based display producer, recently began production of the 6th-generation flexible OLED panel for smartphone at the Wuhan plant. The company planned to mass produce the panel from the second half of this year at first but it moved up the operation date three months ahead. Using the backplane process using low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS), Tianma will produce 30,000 OLED panels a month. It is the first Chinese company producing the 6th-generation flexible OLED panel.

As Tianma mass produces the 6th-generation flexible OLED early, not only Samsung Display, the largest supplier in the market, but also LG Display feel pressured. This is because more and more smartphone makers are using OLED panels for their displays and the Chinese industry is now targeting the market earlier than expected. LG Display plans to start mass production of the 6th-generation flexible OLED panel at the E5 plant in Gumi from June this year with a monthly production of 15,000 units. However, Tianma is one step ahead in terms of production date and production capacity.

In particular, Tianma plans to produce flat and flexible panels at the 6th-generation facility at the same time and supply them to Chinese smartphone manufacturers, such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, which are LG Display’s customers. As Apple, which pursues “multi-vendor” strategy, is now seeking for a smaller OLED supplier, Tianma can emerge as a potential competitor of LG Display, which will supply OLED panels to the iPhone 8 from next year. 

It is also the pressure for Samsung Display which monopolizes the small and mid-size OLED market. Samsung Display currently produces 55,000 units of the 4.5th-generation OLED panel a month at the A1 plant in Cheonan, 180,000 units of the 5.5th-generation panel a month at the A2 plant in Asan and 27,000 units of the 6th-generation panel a month at the A3 plant in Asan. The company outplays Tianma in terms of quantities but it is not happy to have a new competitor in the market. China’s BOE will start mass production of the 6th-generation OLED with a monthly production of 50,000 units from later this year in Chengdu, while China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) will produce 45,000 units a month in Wuhan from the first half of 2020.

The question is how much Chinese companies can raise the quality of small and mid-size OLED panels. An official from the electronics industry, who requested anonymity, said, “Tianma has developed the small and mid-size OLED for years but its quality is not so good. Even LG Display, which is a strong player in the large OLED market, is deliberate in the quality of small and mid-size panels when mass producing. When every company joins into the small and mid-size OLED market, only high quality products will be survived in the market.” 

Copyright © BusinessKorea. Prohibited from unauthorized reproduction and redistribution