lcd panel ratings made in china

In recent time, China domestic companies like BOE have overtaken LCD manufacturers from Korea and Japan. For the first three quarters of 2020, China LCD companies shipped 97.01 million square meters TFT LCD. And China"s LCD display manufacturers expect to grab 70% global LCD panel shipments very soon.

BOE started LCD manufacturing in 1994, and has grown into the largest LCD manufacturers in the world. Who has the 1st generation 10.5 TFT LCD production line. BOE"s LCD products are widely used in areas like TV, monitor, mobile phone, laptop computer etc.

TianMa Microelectronics is a professional LCD and LCM manufacturer. The company owns generation 4.5 TFT LCD production lines, mainly focuses on making medium to small size LCD product. TianMa works on consult, design and manufacturing of LCD display. Its LCDs are used in medical, instrument, telecommunication and auto industries.

TCL CSOT (TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd), established in November, 2009. TCL has six LCD panel production lines commissioned, providing panels and modules for TV and mobile products. The products range from large, small & medium display panel and touch modules.

Established in 1996, Topway is a high-tech enterprise specializing in the design and manufacturing of industrial LCD module. Topway"s TFT LCD displays are known worldwide for their flexible use, reliable quality and reliable support. More than 20 years expertise coupled with longevity of LCD modules make Topway a trustworthy partner for decades. CMRC (market research institution belonged to Statistics China before) named Topway one of the top 10 LCD manufactures in China.

The Company engages in the R&D, manufacturing, and sale of LCD panels. It offers LCD panels for notebook computers, desktop computer monitors, LCD TV sets, vehicle-mounted IPC, consumer electronics products, mobile devices, tablet PCs, desktop PCs, and industrial displays.

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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BOE Technology Group and TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology (TCL CSOT) are among the Chinese panel makers to have ramped up output since around 2019 with generous state subsidies. China is gaining on South Korea, whose share of capacity is seen reaching 55% for 2022 in an October estimate by U.S. market intelligence firm Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC).

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.

[Introduction]: This paper analyzes the competitive pattern of the panel display industry from both supply and demand sides. On the supply side, the optimization of the industry competition pattern by accelerating the withdrawal of Samsung’s production capacity is deeply discussed. Demand-side focuses on tracking global sales data and industry inventory changes.

Since April 2020, the display device sector rose 4.81%, ranking 11th in the electronic subsectors, 3.39 percentage points behind the SW electronic sector, 0.65 percentage points ahead of the Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 Index. Of the top two domestic panel display companies, TCL Technology is up 11.35 percent in April and BOE is up 4.85 percent.

Specific to the panel display plate, we still do the analysis from both ends of supply and demand: supply-side: February operating rate is insufficient, especially panel display module segment grain rate is not good, limited capacity to boost the panel display price. Since March, effective progress has been made in the prevention and control of the epidemic in China. Except for some production lines in Wuhan that have been delayed, other domestic panels show that the production lines have returned to normal. In South Korea, Samsung announced recently that it would accelerate its withdrawal from all LCD production lines. This round of output withdrawal exceeded market expectations both in terms of pace and amplitude. We will make a detailed analysis of it in Chapter 2.

Demand-side: We believe that people spend more time at home under the epidemic situation, and TV, as an important facility for family entertainment, has strong demand resilience. In our preliminary report, we have interpreted the pick-up trend of domestic TV market demand in February, which also showed a good performance in March. At present, the online market in China maintains a year-on-year growth of about 30% every week, while the offline market is still weak, but its proportion has been greatly reduced. At present, people are more concerned about the impact of the epidemic overseas. According to the research of Cinda Electronics Industry Chain, in the first week, after Italy was closed down, local TV sales dropped by about 45% from the previous week. In addition, Media Markt, Europe’s largest offline consumer electronics chain, also closed in mid-March, which will affect terminal sales to some extent, and panel display prices will continue to be under pressure in April and May. However, we believe that as the epidemic is brought under control, overseas market demand is expected to return to the pace of China’s recovery.

From a price perspective, the panel shows that prices have risen every month through March since the bottom of December 19 reversed. However, according to AVC’s price bulletin of TV panel display in early April, the price of TV panel display in April will decrease slightly, and the price of 32 “, 39.5 “, 43 “, 50 “and 55” panels will all decrease by 1 USD.65 “panel shows price down $2; The 75 “panel shows the price down by $3.The specific reasons have been described above, along with the domestic panel display production line stalling rate recovery, supply-side capacity release; The epidemic spread rapidly in Europe and the United States, sports events were postponed, local blockades were gradually rolled out, and the demand side declined to a certain extent.

Looking ahead to Q2, we think prices will remain under pressure in May, but prices are expected to pick up in June as Samsung’s capacity is being taken out and the outbreak is under control overseas. At the same time, from the perspective of channel inventory, the current all-channel inventory, including the inventory of all panel display factories, has fallen to a historical low. The industry as a whole has more flexibility to cope with market uncertainties. At the same time, low inventory is also the next epidemic warming panel show price foreshadowing.

In terms of valuation level, due to the low concentration and fierce competition in the panel display industry in the past ten years, the performance of sector companies is cyclical to a certain extent. Therefore, PE, PB, and other methods should be comprehensively adopted for valuation. On the other hand, the domestic panel shows that the leading companies in the past years have sustained large-scale capital investment, high depreciation, and a long period of poor profitability, leading to the inflated TTM PE in the first half of 2014 to 2017. Therefore, we will display the valuation level of the sector mainly through the PB-band analysis panel in this paper.

In 2017, due to the combined impact of panel display price rise and OLED production, the valuation of the plate continued to expand, with the highest PB reaching 2.8 times. Then, with the price falling, the panel shows that PB bottomed out at the end of January 2019 at only 1.11 times. From the end of 2019 to February, the panel shows that rising prices have driven PB all the way up, the peak PB reached 2.23 times. Since entering March, affected by the epidemic, in the short term panel prices under pressure, the valuation of the plate once again fell back to 1.62 times. In April, the epidemic situation in the epidemic country was gradually under control, and the valuation of the sector rebounded to 1.68 times.

We believe the sector is still at the bottom of the stage as Samsung accelerates its exit from LCD capacity and industry inventories remain low. Therefore, once the overseas epidemic is under control and the domestic demand picks up, the panel shows that prices will rise sharply. In addition, the plate will also benefit from Ultra HD drive in the long term. Panel display plate medium – and long-term growth logic is still clear. Coupled with the optimization of the competitive pattern, industry volatility will be greatly weakened. The current plate PB compared to the historical high has sufficient space, optimistic about the plate leading company’s investment value.

Revenue at Innolux and AU Optronics has been sluggish for several months and improved in March. Since the third quarter of 2017, Innolux’s monthly revenue growth has been negative, while AU Optronics has only experienced revenue growth in a very few months.AU Optronics recorded a record low revenue in January and increased in February and March. Innolux’s revenue returned to growth in March after falling to its lowest in recent years in February. However, because the panel display manufacturers in Taiwan have not put in new production capacity for many years, the production process of the existing production line is relatively backward, and the competitiveness is not strong.

On March 31, Samsung Display China officially sent a notice to customers, deciding to terminate the supply of all LCD products by the end of 2020.LGD had earlier announced that it would close its local LCDTV panel display production by the end of this year. In the following, we will analyze the impact of the accelerated introduction of the Korean factory on the supply pattern of the panel display industry from the perspective of the supply side.

The early market on the panel display plate is controversial, mainly worried about the exit of Korean manufacturers, such as LCD display panel price rise, or will slow down the pace of capacity exit as in 17 years. And we believe that this round of LCD panel prices and 2017 prices are essentially different, the LCD production capacity of South Korean manufacturers exit is an established strategy, will not be transferred because of price warming. Investigating the reasons, we believe that there are mainly the following three factors driving:

(1) Under the localization, scale effect, and aggregation effect, the Chinese panel leader has lower cost and stronger profitability than the Japanese and Korean manufacturers. In terms of cost structure, according to IHS data, material cost accounts for 70% of the cost displayed by the LCD panel, while depreciation accounts for 17%, so the material cost has a significant impact on it. At present, the upstream LCD, polarizer, PCB, mold, and key target material line of the mainland panel display manufacturers are fully imported into the domestic, effectively reducing the material cost. In addition, at the beginning of the factory, manufacturers not only consider the upstream glass and polarizer factory but also consider the synergy between the downstream complete machine factory, so as to reduce the labor cost, transportation cost, etc., forming a certain industrial clustering effect. The growing volume of shipments also makes the economies of scale increasingly obvious. In the long run, the profit gap between the South Korean plant and the mainland plant will become even wider.

(2) The 7 and 8 generation production lines of the Korean plant cannot adapt to the increasing demand for TV in average size. Traditionally, the 8 generation line can only cut the 32 “, 46 “, and 60” panel displays. In order to cut the other size panel displays economically and effectively, the panel display factory has made small adjustments to the 8 generation line size, so there are the 8.5, 8.6, 8.6+, and 8.7 generation lines. But from the cutting scheme, 55 inches and above the size of the panel display only part of the generation can support, and the production efficiency is low, hindering the development of large size TV. Driven by the strong demand for large-size TV, the panel display generation line is also constantly breaking through. In 2018, BOE put into operation the world’s first 10.5 generation line, the Hefei B9 plant, with a designed capacity of 120K/ month. The birth of the 10.5 generation line is epoch-making. It solves the cutting problem of large-size panel displays and lays the foundation for the outbreak of large-size TV. From the cutting method, one 10.5 generation line panel display can effectively cut 18 43 inches, 8 65 inches, 6 75 inches panel display, and can be more efficient in hybrid mode cutting, with half of the panel display 65 inches, the other half of the panel display 75 inches, the yield is also guaranteed. Currently, there are a total of five 10.5 generation lines in the world, including two for domestic panel display companies BOE and Huaxing Optoelectronics. Sharp has a 10.5 generation line in Guangzhou, which is mainly used to produce its own TV. Korean manufacturers do not have the 10.5 generation line. In the context of the increasing size of the TV, Korean manufacturers are obviously at a disadvantage in competitiveness.

(3) As the large-size OLED panel display technology has become increasingly mature, Samsung and LGD hope to transfer production to large-size OLED with better profit prospects as soon as possible. Apart from the price factor, the reason why South Korean manufacturers are exiting LCD production is more because the large-size OLED panel display technology is becoming mature, and Samsung and LGD hope to switch to large-size OLED production as soon as possible, which has better profit prospects. At present, there are three major large-scale OLED solutions including WOLED, QD OLED, and printed OLED, while there is only WOLED with a mass production line at present.

According to statistics, shipments of OLED TVs totaled 2.8 million in 2018 and increased to 3.5 million in 2019, up 25 percent year on year. But it accounted for only 1.58% of global shipments. The capacity gap has greatly limited the volume of OLED TV.LG alone consumes about 47% of the world’s OLED TV panel display capacity, thanks to its own capacity. Other manufacturers can only purchase at a high price. According to the industry chain survey, the current price of a 65-inch OLED panel is around $800-900, while the price of the same size LCD panel is currently only $171.There is a significant price difference between the two.

Samsung and LGD began to shut down LCD production lines in Q3 last year, leading to the recovery of the panel display sector. Entering 2020, the two major South Korean plants have announced further capacity withdrawal planning. In the following section, we will focus on its capacity exit plan and compare it with the original plan. It can be seen that the pace and magnitude of Samsung’s exit this round is much higher than the market expectation:

(1) LGD: LGD currently has three large LCD production lines of P7, P8, and P9 in China, with a designed capacity of 230K, 240K, and 90K respectively. At the CES exhibition at the beginning of this year, the company announced that IT would shut down all TV panel display production capacity in South Korea in 2020, mainly P7 and P8 lines, while P9 is not included in the exit plan because IT supplies IT panel display for Apple.

(2) Samsung: At present, Samsung has L8-1, L8-2, and L7-2 large-size LCD production lines in South Korea, with designed production capacities of 200K, 150K, and 160K respectively. At the same time in Suzhou has a 70K capacity of 8 generation line.

Global shipments of TV panel displays totaled 281 million in 2019, down 1.06 percent year on year, according to Insight. In fact, TV panel display shipments have been stable since 2015 at between 250 and 300 million units. At the same time, from the perspective of the structure of sales volume, the period from 2005 to 2010 was the period when the size of China’s TV market grew substantially. Third-world sales also leveled off in 2014. We believe that the sales volume of the TV market has stabilized and there is no big fluctuation. The impact of the epidemic on the overall demand may be more optimistic than the market expectation.

In contrast to the change in volume, we believe that the core driver of the growth in TV panel display demand is actually the increase in TV size. According to the data statistics of Group Intelligence Consulting, the average size of TV panel display in 2014 was 0.47 square meters, equivalent to the size of 41 inches screen. In 2019, the average TV panel size is 0.58 square meters, which is about the size of a 46-inch screen. From 2014 to 2019, the average CAGR of TV panel display size is 4.18%. Meanwhile, the shipment of TV in 2019 also increased compared with that in 2014. Therefore, from 2014 to 2019, the compound growth rate of the total area demand for TV panel displays is 6.37%.

It is assumed that 4K screen and 8K screen will accelerate the penetration and gradually become mainstream products in the next 2-3 years. The pace of screen size increase will accelerate. We have learned through industry chain research that the average size growth rate of TV will increase to 6-8% in 2020. Driven by the growth of the average size, the demand area of global TV panel displays is expected to grow even if TV sales decline, and the upward trend of industry demand remains unchanged.

Meanwhile, the global LCDTV panel display demand will increase significantly in 2021, driven by the recovery of terminal demand and the continued growth of the average TV size. In 2021, the whole year panel display will be in a short supply situation, the mainland panel shows that both males will enjoy the price elasticity.

This paper analyzes the competition pattern of the panel display industry from both supply and demand sides. On the supply side, the optimization of the industry competition pattern by accelerating the withdrawal of Samsung’s production capacity is deeply discussed. Demand-side focuses on tracking global sales data and industry inventory changes. Overall, we believe that the current epidemic has a certain impact on demand, and the panel shows that prices may be under short-term pressure in April or May. But as Samsung’s exit from LCD capacity accelerates, industry inventories remain low. So once the overseas epidemic is contained and domestic demand picks up, the panel suggests prices will surge. We are firmly optimistic about the A-share panel display plate investment value, maintain the industry “optimistic” rating. Suggested attention: BOE A, TCL Technology.

Founded in 2012, as a LED display brand of Unilumin which is focusing on channel distributions.Lamp is the world’s leading provider of large-screen digital display systems and comprehensive solutions for big data information visualization.Focus on new display panels, big data information visualization, optical electronics, image processing, signal transmission, etc. In the field of technology, it is committed to improving the visual experience of human display technology.Products mainly in HD LED screens,fixed LED screens,rental LED screens and creative LED screens.

Last year, Chinese display panel maker, Tianma ranked No. 1 in the Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon (LTPS) Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) market share of smart phones. This is the first time that a Chinese display panel maker has taken the lead in the small- and medium- size display market.

According to data provided by IHS Markit, market research company, Tianma recorded a 22% share of the LTPS LCD panel market in 2018. It’s a huge leap of the market share from 16.8% in 2017. The share of Japan-based JDI which ranked No. 1, dropped 25.6% to 18%, and its ranking was pushed back to the second place. Third place was BOE (11%), fourth place was AUO (10%), and fifth place was Sharp (9%).

The reason why Tianma has moved up to the top is because of the Chinese major smartphone makers. Huawei"s Tianma LTPS LCD panel shipments, which stood at 13% in 2015, climbed to 46% in the first half of last year. During the same period, Xiaomi expanded from 30% to 58% and Bibo from 37% to 50%. According to the Counterpoint Research"s data for smartphones sales last year, Huawei shipped 205.3 million units of smartphones increased by 34% YOY, Xiaomi to 121 million units increased by 26% and Bibo to 102.8 million units increased by 3%.

Chinese makers such as Tianma, BOE and AUO have risen to the top of the LTPS LCD panel market, however the Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) are more profitable. OLED ($ 6,430.3 million) outperformed LCD ($ 4,195.8 million) in the smartphone display market as of the third quarter of 2018. This is the second time since the fourth quarter of 2017. This result has shown as the smartphone market is stagnant, each company is implementing a premium strategy and the adoption of flexible OLEDs is increasing.

IHS Markit analyzed "the Chinese display industry is investing heavily in OLED" and “Following the increased demand for the premium smartphones, Chinese OLED panel shipment is also increasing.” According to a recent report by Display Supply Chain Consultant (DSCC), the market researcher, BOE"s small- and medium- size OLED panel shipment exceeded 1 million units in every month of the fourth quarter of last year. The yield, which stood at the first digit in the beginning, is expected to exceed 40% in the first quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, the amount of LTPS LCD panel shipment was recorded 689 million units last year. It’s increased by 12% compared to 620 million units last year.

For example, the display is made up of a number of components. At its heart is a thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel, which is mated with a backlight assembly and bezel. The TFT-LCD panels are made by a handful of Asian manufacturers in large, capital-intensive factories — the most recent of these cost more than $6 billion each to build and equip. These panel makers, in turn, are dependent on others who supply essential raw materials such as optically flat glass sheets, polarizing films, flexible circuit connectors, display driver chips, and a host of other inputs. The display driver chips are made in semiconductor factories (“fabs”) spread around the world.

Capital efficiency — how much capital you have deployed in your business — is another thing that is important to shareholders and Wall Street analysts. Nobody wants to pay for idle or underutilized capacity, and in sectors where the capital expenditures for plant and equipment are extraordinarily high (think semiconductors, flat panel displays, automotive assembly, materials processing), investors applaud the outsourcing or offshoring to someone who is willing to invest or to a geography where they can receive subsidies.

The desire to avoid capital investments also leads to risk aversion to investing in new manufacturing technologies. I worked with a company that was supplying quantum dot backlighting technology for LCD flat-panel displays. Manufacturers were insistent that any new technologies had to fit into their existing capital-intensive workflows. I also heard a leader of a U.S. Department of Energy R&D group worry about how the extensive battery-manufacturing infrastructure in China had moved so effectively down the cost curve that it made it difficult for a potentially superior new technology from several MIT spinoffs to compete let alone raise the capital for a new production facility. The problem for the United States is exacerbated by countries like China that subsidize the construction and equipping of new production facilities.