lcd panel production 2018 manufacturer

BOE Technology Group, the Chinese electronic components producer, is expected to be the leader in producing LCD display panels in the coming years, with a forecast capacity share of 24 percent by 2022. China is the country that has the largest LCD capacity, with a 56 percent share in 2020.Read moreLCD panel production capacity share from 2016 to 2022, by manufacturerCharacteristicBOEChina StarInnoluxAUOLGDHKCCEC PandaSharpSDCOther-----------

DSCC. (June 8, 2020). LCD panel production capacity share from 2016 to 2022, by manufacturer [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved December 16, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1057455/lcd-panel-production-capacity-manufacturer/

DSCC. "LCD panel production capacity share from 2016 to 2022, by manufacturer." Chart. June 8, 2020. Statista. Accessed December 16, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1057455/lcd-panel-production-capacity-manufacturer/

DSCC. (2020). LCD panel production capacity share from 2016 to 2022, by manufacturer. Statista. Statista Inc.. Accessed: December 16, 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1057455/lcd-panel-production-capacity-manufacturer/

DSCC. "Lcd Panel Production Capacity Share from 2016 to 2022, by Manufacturer." Statista, Statista Inc., 8 Jun 2020, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1057455/lcd-panel-production-capacity-manufacturer/

DSCC, LCD panel production capacity share from 2016 to 2022, by manufacturer Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1057455/lcd-panel-production-capacity-manufacturer/ (last visited December 16, 2022)

Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.

Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:

Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:

MicroLED displays is an emerging flat-panel display technology consisting of arrays of microscopic LEDs forming the individual pixel elements. Like OLED, microLED offers infinite contrast ratio, but unlike OLED, microLED is immune to screen burn-in, and consumes less power while having higher light output, as it uses LEDs instead of organic electroluminescent materials, The list of MicroLED display manufacturers:

LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.

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At present, markets such as large-screen TVs are still inseparable from LCD panels. Several Chinese panel manufacturers have surpassed Samsung and LG to become the main LCD panel manufacturers in recent years. Korean companies are no longer able to compete. Samsung will stop the production of LCD panels half a year ahead of schedule. Samsung used to be the largest LCD panel manufacturer, but in recent years, Chinese companies such as BOE and CSOT have rapidly expanded their market shares. Samsung and LG have continued to retreat, making BOE surpass LGD in 2018. As of now, BOE is now the world’s largest manufacturer of LCD panels.

Samsung originally planned to stop the production of LCD panels by the end of 2020. However, the LCD panel market started to increase prices in the past year or so. This made Samsung’s LCD factory continue to operate for another two years. However, the company originally plans to exit the market at the end of 2022. Nevertheless, the LCD panel market has changed since the end of last year. The price has been falling significantly and it is now on a free fall. By January this year, the average price of a 32 -inch panel was only $ 38, a 64% drop relative to January last year.

This situation is making Samsung rethink its initial exit plans. The South Korean manufacturing giant is now planning to withdraw from LCD panel production half a year ahead of schedule. It will stop production in June this year. Samsung Display, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, will turn to higher-end QD quantum dot panels. The LCD panels that the company needs will turn to procurement.

According to information released by Samsung Electronics, the company’s three major suppliers of LCD panels are BOE, Huaxing Optoelectronics, and AUO, all of which are Chinese companies. The first two are local companies, and they are the first and second-largest suppliers of LCD.

Due to high demand in South Kore, Samsung Display had to extend its production of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panels for TVs and monitors in South Korea. Its exit from the LCD market will give the company room to concentrate on more advanced technologies.

Samsung’s delay in closing the LCD panel plant will increase the production area and there is the risk of material shortages. Thus, the dipping price of LCD panels gives the company all the reasons it needs to quit the market.

Panel makers are cutting production by 16 percent on average from this month, Rong Chaoping, senior researcher at market research firm AVC Revo, told Yicai Global. Television panel makers are expected to ship 3.6 million less panels than last month.

Panel makers will reduce capacity by between 15 and 20 percent this month, said Wu Rongbing, chief analyst at Chinese semiconductor intelligence service Omdia.

TCL China Star intends to continue with its production cuts until September, while Beijing-based BOE and HKC Optoelectronics Technology have not yet decided how long they will reduce output, Rong said. None of the three companies responded when contacted by Yicai Global.

LCD TV display shipments from China’s five largest panel manufacturers accounted for 68.5 percent of the global market in April, a new high, and they were expected to exceed 70 percent this year, according to Omdia.

The global panel industry is expected to slash production by about 20 percent this year, according to Beijing-based Sigmaintell. It is the first time since 2013 that the worldwide sector has implemented such a large-scale and wide-ranging cut in manufacturing. But it should help to slow the fall in prices, Li said.

“Tumbling prices are squeezing profits,” Li said. “The price of a TV panel is now below cost price and that of some data panels is also below the manufacturing cost.”

“Panel makers are facing rising liquidity pressure and bigger losses as prices are now below cost price, so the display industry is likely to undergo another big reshuffle,” Rong said.

Panel prices are likely to stop dropping this month or next as output falls, Wu said. Whether prices will start to pick up soon depends on when demand improves.

(January 23, 2019) – Global shipments of large thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) panels rose again in 2018 despite concerns of over-supply in the market. In particular, area shipments increased by 10.6 percent to 197.9 million square meters compared to the previous year, driven by TV and monitor panels, according to

Fierce price competition in large 65- and 75-inch display panels was ignited as Chinese panel maker BOE started the mass production of the panels in 2018 at its B9 10.5-generation facility. “With BOE operating the 10.5-generation line, panel makers have become more aggressive on pricing since early 2018 to digest their capacity,” said

Rising demand for gaming-PC and professional-purpose monitors boosted shipments of high-end, large panels. “Some panel makers have allocated more monitor panels to the fab, replacing existing TV panels, to make up for poor performance of that business,” Wu said.

Demand for other applications, which include public, automotive and industrial displays, recorded the highest growth rates of 17.5 percent by area and 28.6 percent by unit. “Panel makers view these applications as a new cash cow that can compensate for the sharp price erosion in main panels for TVs, monitors and notebook PCs,” Wu said.

LG Display led the area shipments of large display panels, with a 21 percent share in 2018, followed by BOE (17 percent) and Samsung Display (16 percent). BOE boasted the largest unit-shipment share of 23 percent, followed by LG Display (20 percent) and Innolux (17 percent), according to the

Large TFT LCD panel shipment growth is expected to continue in 2019. The preliminary forecast for unit shipments of three major products indicates that panel makers will continue to focus on the monitor and notebook PC panel businesses, increasing shipments by 5.3 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively, over the year, while shipments of TV panels are forecast to grow just 2.6 percent.

In 2019, three new 10.5-generation fabs – ChinaStar’s T6, BOE’s second fab and Foxconn/Sharp’s Guangzhou line – are expected to start mass production. All of them are assigned to manufacture TV panels, further boosting TV panel supply. “As the TV panel business is predicted to remain tough, panel makers, who enjoyed relatively better outcomes with monitor and notebook PC panels in 2018, will likely focus on the IT panel businesses,” Wu said.

IHS Markit provides information about the entire range of large display panels shipped worldwide and regionally, including monthly and quarterly revenues and shipments by display area, application, size and aspect ratio for each supplier.

The decision to close the LCD business, by Samsung Display, will be completed by June of 2022 as the company faces tough competition from its Chinese and Taiwanese counterparts, reports GizmoChina. / Representative image | Photo credit: IANS

The decision to close the LCD business, by Samsung Display, will be completed by June of 2022 as the company faces tough competition from its Chinese and Taiwanese counterparts, reports GizmoChina.

The company has decided to focus on manufacturing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and quantum dot (QD) displays, as OLED panels have started to become the norm in the smartphone market.

A recent Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC) revealed that the price of an LCD is 36.6 per cent of what it used to be in January 2014, the component"s peak production period.

No investment plan details have since been announced, and the employees of the LCD business are expected to be transferred to the QD business, the report said.

Samsung Display had decided to close its LCD business in late 2020, but the plans were delayed at Samsung Electronics" request due to a sudden increase in the prices of LCD panels during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As one of the main application markets of small and medium-sized panels, LCD display panel manufacturers never stop competing in the automotive panel display market. Especially with the development of 5G, unmanned driving, and new energy vehicles, the update and iteration of display panel technology are accelerating.

From the perspective of the automotive panel display market and research and development, a-si, TFT-LCD, LTPS, AMOLED, and Mini/Micro LED are the main technologies of vehicle display panels at the present stage. Among them, a-si and TFT-LCD markets are weakening, LTPS is on the rise, AMOLED is rising strongly, Mini/Micro LED is A forward-looking technology reserve, appearing in various exhibitions at high frequency.

Auto display panels shipped 1.615 million units in 2018, up 9.4 percent from a year earlier, according to IHS Markit.IHS notes that the global automotive LCD display panel market is entering a period of slow growth but intense competition.

But car displays panel will grow at a compound annual rate of 7 percent from 2017 to 2025, compared with weak demand for smartphones that will be hard to reverse. Demand for display panels for car and public displays, smartwatches, and OLED TVs is expected to grow faster than other applications.

Panel makers have added more screens for cars in recent years, either to expand revenue growth or to smooth out the shortcomings of smartphone panels.

In terms of vehicle LCD display panel shipments in 2018, JDI, LGD, tianma, au optronics, and qunchuang optronics are the top five global enterprises in terms of vehicle display panel shipments, with market shares of 16.9%, 12.8%, 12.4%, 12.1%, and 11.0% respectively.

JDI and LGD are the dominant vehicle panels for LTPS. With the help of the two companies, LTPS gradually occupied A certain market share of the vehicle display panel after a-si. The advantages of LTPS are ultra-thin, lightweight, low power consumption, colorful and clearer, and the OLED panels are derived from LTPS.

According to the new display of high tech, JDI has laid out the LTPS in 2015 and made the LTPS plan for mass production for vehicle display. With its technical advantages and mass production level, JDI’s vehicle display panel business revenue exceeded 100 billion yen for * times in 2017.JDI’s automotive panel revenue plans to expand to 160 billion yen by 2020, said Holger Gerkens, JDI’s executive officer for automotive panels.

Au optronics is a late adopter of the LTPS, but its LTPS products were introduced to the full range of automotive panels in 2018. Its products are said to achieve color saturation up to NTSC * and can be switched between high-resolution images and traditional mirror mode depending on driving requirements. As au optronics Kunshan 6 generation LTPS panel factory capacity is full, it is expected that the proportion of LTPS vehicle panels is expected to increase.

Mainland panel manufacturers, TCL group subsidiary huaxing optoelectronics have expanded production of the sixth generation of LTPS display panel technology, and the product positioning includes the application of automotive display.

OLED panel has higher response speed, lower energy consumption, flexible display, non-breakable, no dead Angle and other characteristics, in the industry, its performance is conducive to improve driving safety, very suitable for the vehicle display panel market. UBI Research expects OLED to account for 10% of the vehicle display market by 2020.

Mainland manufacturers boe and vechino have both expanded production of AMOLED, and their AMOLED panels have been applied in-vehicle display, breaking the gap in technology and application in the domestic market. According to related reports, boe’s AMOLED panel is also equipped with Mini LED, in-cell, and other technologies.

Vercino AMOLED is still in its initial stage, but there is already A certain scale of the AMOLED production line, and in April this year, transparent a-pillar MVS were mass-produced to solve the problem of driving blind area.

JDI also said that it will take advantage of JOLED printed OLED technology to strengthen the development of new product technology and gradually expand the sales of vehicle panels.

From the application side, OLED display panels are currently mainly used in high-end automobile brands and new energy vehicles, occupying a limited market share. However, some industry insiders believe that OLED is expected to become the mainstream of automotive display, with technology and mass production advantages of the panel factory revenue prospects are considerable.

In addition, with the Mini/Micro LED technology increasingly mature, two technologies have become the panel factory forward-looking technology layout focus.

The car display panel is a niche market. When many enterprises develop Mini/Micro LED, they often regard car display as one of the main application scenarios. However, the Mini/Micro LED in the vehicle display market has not yet entered the commercial stage.

In the future, the vehicle LCD display panel will blossom, especially under the assistance of 5G and self-driving cars, the vehicle display technology will advance towards high specifications.

Global shipments of large thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) panels rose again in 2018 despite concerns of over-supply in the market. In particular, area shipments increased by 10.6 percent to 197.9 million square meters compared to the previous year, driven by TV and monitor panels, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

Fierce price competition in large 65- and 75-inch display panels was ignited as Chinese panel maker BOE started the mass production of the panels in 2018 at its B9 10.5-generation facility. “With BOE operating the 10.5-generation line, panel makers have become more aggressive on pricing since early 2018 to digest their capacity,” said Robin Wu, principal analyst at IHS Markit. “Large panels are still more profitable than smaller ones.”

Rising demand for gaming-PC and professional-purpose monitors boosted shipments of high-end, large panels. “Some panel makers have allocated more monitor panels to the fab, replacing existing TV panels, to make up for poor performance of that business,” Wu said.

Demand for other applications, which include public, automotive and industrial displays, recorded the highest growth rates of 17.5 percent by area and 28.6 percent by unit. “Panel makers view these applications as a new cash cow that can compensate for the sharp price erosion in main panels for TVs, monitors and notebook PCs,” Wu said.

LG Display led the area shipments of large display panels, with a 21 percent share in 2018, followed by BOE (17 percent) and Samsung Display (16 percent). BOE boasted the largest unit-shipment share of 23 percent, followed by LG Display (20 percent) and Innolux (17 percent), according to the Large Area Display MarketTrackerby IHS Markit.

Large TFT LCD panel shipment growth is expected to continue in 2019. The preliminary forecast for unit shipments of three major products indicates that panel makers will continue to focus on the monitor and notebook PC panel businesses, increasing shipments by 5.3 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively, over the year, while shipments of TV panels are forecast to grow just 2.6 percent.

In 2019, three new 10.5-generation fabs – ChinaStar’s T6, BOE’s second fab and Foxconn/Sharp’s Guangzhou line – are expected to start mass production. All of them are assigned to manufacture TV panels, further boosting TV panel supply. “As the TV panel business is predicted to remain tough, panel makers, who enjoyed relatively better outcomes with monitor and notebook PC panels in 2018, will likely focus on the IT panel businesses,” Wu said.

The Large Area Display MarketTrackerbyIHS Markit provides information about the entire range of large display panels shipped worldwide and regionally, including monthly and quarterly revenues and shipments by display area, application, size and aspect ratio for each supplier.

In general, there are two types of displays in the market today: active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) and AMOLED. In its simplicity, the fundamental components required to make up the display are the same for AMLCD and AMOLED. There are four layers of a display device (FIGURE 1): a light source, switches that are the thin-film-transistor and where the gases are mainly used, a shutter to control the color selection, and the RGB (red, green, blue) color filter.

Technology trends TFT-LCD (thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display) is the baseline technology. MO / White OLED (organic light emitting diode) is used for larger screens. LTPS / AMOLED is used for small / medium screens. The challenges for OLED are the effect of < 1 micron particles on yield, much higher cost compared to a-Si due to increased mask steps, and moisture impact to yield for the OLED step.

Although AMLCD displays are still dominant in the market today, AMOLED displays are growing quickly. Currently about 25% of smartphones are made with AMOLED displays and this is expected to grow to ~40% by 2021. OLED televisions are also growing rapidly, enjoying double digit growth rate year over year. Based on IHS data, the revenue for display panels with AMOLED technol- ogies is expected to have a CAGR of 18.9% in the next five years while the AMLCD display revenue will have a -2.8% CAGR for the same period with the total display panel revenue CAGR of 2.5%. With the rapid growth of AMOLED display panels, the panel makers have accel- erated their investment in the equipment to produce AMOLED panels.

There are three types of thin-film-transistor devices for display: amorphous silicon (a-Si), low temperature polysilicon (LTPS), and metal oxide (MO), also known as transparent amorphous oxide semiconductor (TAOS). AMLCD panels typically use a-Si for lower-resolution displays and TVs while high-resolution displays use LTPS transistors, but this use is mainly limited to small and medium displays due to its higher costs and scalability limitations. AMOLED panels use LTPS and MO transistors where MO devices are typically used for TV and large displays (FIGURE 3).

This shift in technology also requires a change in the gases used in production of AMOLED panels as compared with the AMLCD panels. As shown in FIGURE 4, display manufacturing today uses a wide variety of gases.

The key ga susage driver in the manufacturing of displays is PECVD (plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition), which accounts for 75% of the ESG spending, while dry etch is driving helium usage. LTPS and MO transistor production is driving nitrous oxide usage. The ESG usage for MO transistor production differs from what is shown in FIGURE 4: nitrous oxide makes up 63% of gas spend, nitrogen trifluoride 26%, silane 7%, and sulfur hexafluoride and ammonia together around 4%. Laser gases are used not only for lithography, but also for excimer laser annealing application in LTPS.

Nitrogen trifluoride: NF3 is the single largest electronic material from spend and volume standpoint for a-Si and LTPS display production while being surpassed by N2O for MO production. NF3 is used for cleaning the PECVD chambers. This gas requires scalability to get the cost advantage necessary for the highly competitive market.

Nitrous oxide: Used in both LTPS and MO display production, N2O has surpassed NF3 to become the largest electronic material from spend and volume standpoint for MO production. N2O is a regional and localized product due to its low cost, making long supply chains with high logistic costs unfeasible. Averaging approximately 2 kg per 5.5 m2 of mother glass area, it requires around 240 tons per month for a typical 120K per month capacity generation 8.5 MO display production. The largest N2O compressed gas trailer can only deliver six tons of N2O each time and thus it becomes both costly and risky

In-fab distribution: Gas supply does not end with the delivery or production of the material of the fab. Rather, the materials are further regulated with additional filtration, purification, and on-line analysis before delivery to individual production tools.

The consumer demand for displays that offer increas- ingly vivid color, higher resolution, and lower power consumption will challenge display makers to step up the technologies they employ and to develop newer displays such as flexible and transparent displays. The transistors to support these new displays will either be LTPS and / or MO, which means the gases currently being used in these processes will continue to grow. Considering the current a-Si display production, the gas consumption per area of the glass will increase by 25% for LTPS and ~ 50% for MO productions.

To facilitate these increasing demands, display manufacturers must partner with gas suppliers to identify which can meet their technology needs, globally source electronic materials to provide customers with stable and cost- effective gas solutions, develop local sources of electronic materials, improve productivity, reduce carbon footprint, and increase energy efficiency through on-site gas plants. This is particularly true for the burgeoning China display manufacturing market, which will benefit from investing in on-site bulk gas plants and collaboration with global materials suppliers with local production facilities for high-purity gas and chemical manufacturing.

LG Display and Samsung Display are struggling to find their ways out of the deterioration of their performance even after withdrawing from production of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. The high-priced organic light emitting diode (OLED) panel sector regarded as a future growth engine is not growing fast due to the economic downturn. Even in the OLED panel sector, Chinese display makers are within striking distance of Korean display makers, experts say.

On Aug. 30, Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), a market research company, predicted that LCD TV panel prices hit an all-time low in August and that an L-shaped recession will continue in the fourth quarter. According to DSCC, the average price of a 65-inch ultra-high-definition (UHD) panel in August was only US$109, a 62 percent drop from the highest price of US$288 recorded in July in 2021. The average price of a 75-inch UHD panel was only US$218, which was only about half of the highest price of US$410 in July last year. DSCC predicted that the average panel price in the third quarter will fall by 15.7 percent. As Chinese companies’ price war and the effect of stagnation in consumption overlapped, the more LCD panels display makers produce, the more loss they suffer.

As panel prices fell, manufacturers responded by lowering facility utilization rates. DSCC said that the LCD factory utilization rate descended from 87 percent in April to 83 percent in May, 73 percent in June, and 70 percent in July.

Now that the LCD panel business has become no longer lucrative, Korean display makers have shut down their LCD business or shrunk their sizes. In the LCD sector, China has outpaced Korea since 2018. China’s LCD market share reached 50.9 percent in 2021, while that of Korea dropped to 14.4 percent, lower than Taiwan’s 31.6 percent.

Samsung Display already announced its withdrawal from the LCD business in June. Only 10 years have passed since the company was spun off from Samsung Electronics in 2012. LG Display has decided to halt domestic LCD TV panel production until 2023 and reorganize its business structure centering on OLED panels. Its Chinese LCD production line will be gradually converted to produce LCD panels for IT or commercial products. TrendForce predicted that LG Display will stop operating its P7 Plant in the first quarter of next year.

Korean display makers’ waning LCD business led to a situation in which Korea even lost first place in the display industry. Korea with a display market share of 33.2 percent was already overtaken by China with 41.5 percent) in 2021 according to market researcher Omdia and the Korea Display Industry Association. Korea’s market share has never rebounded in for five years since 2017 amid the Korean government’s neglect. Seventeen years have passed since 2004 when Korea overtook Japan to rise to the top of the world in the LCD industry. Korea’s LCD exports amounted to more than US$30 billion in 2014, but fell to US$21.4 billion last year.

A bigger problem is that Korean display makers may lose its leadership in the OLED panel sector although it is still standing at the top spot. While Korea’s OLED market share fell from 98.1 percent in 2016 to 82.8 percent last year, that of China rose from 1.1 percent to 16.6 percent. Considering that the high-end TV market is highly likely to shrink for the time being due to a full-fledged global consumption contraction, some analysts say that the technology gap between Korea and China can be sharply narrowed through this looming TV market slump. According to industry sources, the Chinese government is now focusing on giving subsidies to the development of OLED panel technology rather LCD technology. On the other hand, in Korea, displays were also wiped out from national strategic technology industry items under the Restriction of Special Taxation Act which can receive tax benefits for R&D activities on displays.

BOE, China’s largest display company, was listed as a major panel supplier in Samsung Electronics’ business report. BOE has filled the vacancy created by Samsung Display’s phased reduction of large LCD panels for TVs.

The business report, which was registered with the Financial Supervisory Service’s electronic disclosure system, listed three major display panel suppliers for the company"s consumer electronics (CE) sector in 2021 -- BOE and CSOT of China and AUO of Taiwan. BOE was newly added as a major supplier. BOE surpassed LG Display in 2018 to become the world’s No. 1 LCD manufacturer.

Samsung Display decided in early 2021 to stop producing large LCD panels beginning from 2022. The decision was made to speed up its transition to next-generation QD-OLED panels as the profitability of the LCD business fell significantly due to a price war with Chinese companies.

It stopped the operation of L7 at Asan Campus in South Chungcheong Province, which had produced large LCD panels, in March 2021. An 8th-generation LCD production line at the Suzhou plant in China was sold in April 2021. However, it is still operating some of its large LCD production facilities at Asan Campus at the request of Samsung Electronics. Samsung Display is considering shutting down these facilities within June 2022.

Industry insiders say that Samsung Display"s withdrawal from the LCD business has weakened Samsung Electronics" bargaining power in negotiations with Chinese vendors.

Samsung Electronics’ price burden for TV panels has nearly doubled over the past year. The Samsung Electronics business report says that the company spent 10,582.3 billion won on purchasing display panels in 2021. This was an increase of 94.2 percent from the previous year (5,448.3 billion won). The main factor behind the increase is a rise in LCD panel prices. Samsung Electronics explained that prices of TV panels rose about 39 percent on year in 2021.

Industry insiders say one solution is to accelerate a shift to OLED-based TVs. Chinese panel makers are investing aggressively to develop large OLED panel technologies, but they have not yet reached the volume production stage.

Samsung Electronics is negotiating with Samsung Display and LG Display over the release of OLED TVs. LG Display is the only company that mass produces large OLED panels. It can produce 10 million TV panels annually. Samsung Display started mass production of large OLED panels at the end of 2021. The two Korean OLED panel makers adopt white (W) and blue (B) light sources, respectively.

LCD panel market is expecting several new large generation fabs in 2018. BOE has launched the world’s first Gen 10.5 fab, while CEC-CHOT’s Gen 8.6 fab and Gen 8.6+ fab of CEC-Panda Chengdu will also go into operation this year. WitsView, a division of TrendForce, says that there was a 20-40% downward correction in TV panel prices during 2017. While the price decline in the TV panel market will be easing in this year"s first half, this first quarter will still see the price trend on a gradual downward slope.

Falling panel prices will spur promotions in the end product market. Therefore, stock-up demand from TV brands will be warmer in this year’s second half compared with the second half of 2017. The supply and demand of TV panels are also expected to reach a more balanced state. Our latest analysis indicates that the risk of serious oversupply in the TV panel market will most likely to happen later in 2019.

Anita Wang, senior research manager of WitsView, points out that the new fab will have limited input in early stages, and will need time to improve field rate and production capacity. Therefore, Wang estimates that they will only contribute to 3% of the global glass input for large-size LCD panels. And the figure is expected to raise to 6-8% in 2019.

Going into operation on December 20th, 2017, BOE’s Gen 10.5 fab in Hefei is expected to enter mass production in March 2018. The major products will be large-size TV panels of 65" UHD 60Hz and 75" UHD 60Hz, intensifying the competition in large-size (65" or greater) TV panel market.

In the production of 65" TV panels, for instance, current Gen 6 fab cuts per glass substrate into 2 panels, while Gen 8.5 fab cuts into 3. In Gen 10.5 fab, however, the number rises to 8, increasing the productivity of 65" TV panels significantly.

WitsView forecasts that BOE’s Gen 10.5 fab will target at more than 2 million pieces for the production of 65" panels, but whether this goal can be achieved still depends on the improvement in yield rate. The Gen 10.5 fab will not have large-scale influences on the overall supply in the industry this year, but BOE will impact the market in 2019 with its shipments expected to reach 3 to 4 million pieces. In 2020, BOE is even predicted to surpass panel makers in South Korea and record the highest shipments for 65" panels, with its market share reaching around 37%. In comparison, the market share of Taiwanese panel makers for 65" panels will drop to 18% in 2020 without any capacity expansion.