Flexible OLED Likely to Lead Growth of OLED Panel Market from 2019

According to UBI Research’s recent report on December 13, flexible and rigid OLED shipments are estimated to reach 480 million and 409 million units in 2019, respectively. In addition, flexible OLED shipments are estimated to reach 1.285 billion units and flexible OLED sales are estimated to reach US$59.4 billion in 2022 by showing an average annual growth of 41% from 2018.

These days, display panel manufacturers are increasing their investments for flexible OLED manufacturing. Chinese companies such as BOE, CSOT and Visionox are expected to boost their investments in the Gen6 flexible OLED next year. Under the circumstances, China’s flexible OLED shipments are forecast to show an annual average growth of 59% to reach 354 million units in 2022.

In the report, the structures of rigid and flexible OLEDs and their manufacturing processes are compared to each other and the trend of R&D regarding foldable OLED development is analyzed. In addition, the flexible OLED technologies of Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Apple, which have released mobile devices equipped with full screen OLEDs, are compared to each other and the flexible OLED market for the period of 2018 to 2022 is predicted by country, generation, display type, etc.

According to the report, full screen OLED shipments for 2018 are estimated at 265 million units and the products’ share in the flexible OLED market is estimated at 82.1% for the same period. The figures are estimated to reach 1.022 billion and 79.5% in 2022. Foldable OLED shipments, in the meantime, are estimated at five million units in 2019 and 53 million units in 2022.