1st Quarter Revenues for S/M Displays Reach New Highs as OEMs Shift to 18:9 All Screen Panels
July 10, 2017 The global small- and medium-sized display market in the first three months of this year has expanded at an unprecedented pace in the first quarter due to the fast shift to OLED panels from LCD screens for smartphones. According IHS Markit, sales of 9-inch and smaller displays - used mostly in smartphones - in the first quarter ended March this year soared 35 percent to $13 billion from $9.6 billion in the same quarter last year. Both the sales record and growth are quarterly record and rare given the fact that the first quarter is typically a slow season. Sales of smartphone displays amounted to $9.9 billion, 76.2 percent in the small-to-mid sized panel market, which is slightly lower than the $10 billion sales recorded in the year-end peak season of the fourth quarter of 2016, but up by 41 percent from the same period last year at $7 billion. Samsung Display Co., the largest vendor in small- and medium-sized OLED panels, was #1 in the category with small-to-mid panel revenue of $3.5b, 27.2% market share. Japan Display followed with a17.8% share ($2.3b) and LG Display with 12.2% share ($1.6b). BOE and Sharp were 4th and 5th at 8.9% and 7.2%, respectively. Tight production capacity for 18:9 all-screen panels is causing China-based smartphone vendors such as Vivo to shift some orders to local panel suppliers in China. Major smartphone players in China, including Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi Technology and Gionee have recently accelerated their developments of all-screen models, but the shift in demand has aggravated an already tight production at some panel makers, forcing China's smartphone vendors to switch their orders from Taiwanese panel makers to Chinese panel makers. Vivo is seeking to secure all-screen panel supplies from Tianma Micro-electronics and others. Xiaomi reportedly has adopted an aggressive policy to develop all-screen models, with a significant portion of new phones launched in the second half of the year to come with 18:9 panels, the sources indicated. Xiaomi managed to recapture the fifth position in the smartphone vendor ranking in China recently, fueled by its recently released Redmi 4X and Remi Note 4X. |
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