lcd panel supply chain brands

DSCC’s mission is provide worldwide end-to-end supply chain expertise for all display-based products. To accomplish this, we have established close relationships with the display supply chain from component and equipment suppliers to flat panel suppliers, OEMs, brands and even retailers. This has been achieved by the extensive experience of its founders and employees which have decades of experience covering every layer of the display supply chain. Meet the DSCC team here and read what clients have to say about DSCC here.

On panel shipments, we survey panel suppliers, brands as well as component suppliers to ensure there is enough supply to meet demand. By knowing glass input as well as panel shipments, this also allows us to quantify yields.

For every display application, in addition to tracking supply and demand, we also quantify costs, prices and margins and factor into account regional differences.

Based on Omdia’s Large Area Display Price Tracker, April 2021, Sanju Khatri, director of consulting for displays, ProAV and consumer devices at research and consultancy firm Omdia, provided some analysis on disruption in the display supply chain due to component shortage and high demand. Impact will be mostly felt on LCD technology, as strong demand and component shortage will lead to the following price cycles for LCD panels.

To read more about the broader supply situation, here’s our interview with manufacturers including Crestron, Valens, Barco, Legrand AV, MXL, and AVIXA .

EDITOR’S NOTE: Three distinct terms are used below. Components (display driver IC, glass, and polarizer); panel (raw LCD panels) and brands/finished sets/device vendors (TV, monitor/laptops/ProAV vendors).

Strong consumer demand for TVs/IT displays. The “at home” trends are including work at home, learn at home, entertain at home and shop at home. The LCD TV, Notebook, LCD monitor, and tablet PC products continue to have the strong demand thanks to the “at home” trends.

Display panel makers are increasing prices sharply to take the fast turnaround on profitability. The LCD TV open cell prices have been increasing by 40%-50% from June 2020 to December 2020. And it is expected there will be another 20% increase from January 2021 to May 2021.

Component shortage(Glass substrate, Display Driver IC, T-con, PMIC, Polarizer films) are frustrating the supply chain from time to time, making the set makers to be more nervous thus giving more orders. Three display components are especially tight in 2021, represented by “P.I.G.”

P: Polarizer, protective/release films and surface treatment capacity are in tightness due to the production bottleneck and the retreat of the makers. However, the polarizer shortage is viewed as a short term as the long-term polarizer supply is sufficient.

I: IC, Display Driver IC supply is expected to loosen from 2H21however, limited foundry capacity and allocation competition with other IC applications may continue to complicate display panel shipments into the future. Even with the incremental display driver IC wafer foundry in the second half of 2021 (2H21), it is possible the wafer capacity allocation will be shifting to other IC applications.

Fluorinated greenhouse gases (F-GHGs) are among the most potent and persistent greenhouse gases (GHGs) contributing to global climate change. These gases play a vital role in the manufacture of flat panel displays--most commonly liquid crystal display (LCD) panels--that go into televisions, computer monitors, and many other display products. The overall climate impact of the millions of display products used can be greatly reduced if suppliers of these components take steps to mitigate release of these F-GHGs to the atmosphere. While progress is underway, your awareness and support as a brand, retailer, or institutional buyer can expedite this effort. This webinar explained the manufacturing processes which release F-GHGs into the environment, how LCD suppliers are working to reduce their emissions, and the steps participants can take to support further improvements.

Involving multiple existing industries and new industries, micoLED displays may shape the existing LED and display supply chain, resulting in a lengthy and complex new one. New technology approaches and new products can also provide new opportunities for the players, such as the CMOS industry can take a position in the microLED-based micro-display supply chain.

The perceptions of COVID-19 in February and afterwards are quite different. In February, the situation of COVID-19 was the most severe in China. Therefore, many analyses focused on the supply chain safety. The risk has been discussed multiple times to further rely the global industrial supply chains in China. While from March, the global pandemic made people view from a broader angle. First, the global economy growth has been severely downgraded all over the world and unemployment rates have increased, even with the government support from some countries. Second, the consumer industry has been deeply affected. The purchasing of less necessary products will be reduced both for consumers and business units. Thirdly, the financial markets have been impacted. Next, but not least, the impact to the global supply chain will remain, both for now and in the future.

It has been accepted by many that the COVID-19 global pandemic will make U.S.-China relations more tense. Also, globalization is in decline with closed borders, travel restrictions, export conditions and paralyzed supply chains. On the one hand, IDTechEx has heard from a few small companies that they deliberately chose to partner with companies who are less likely to be affected by the trade war. On the other hand, although globalization is still the general trend, regional clusters may play a more important role in the supply chain building than global network in the future.

In both LCD and OLED displays, producing these cells – which are highly complex – is by far the most difficult element of the production process. Indeed, the complexity of these cells, combined with the levels of investment needed to achieve expertise in their production, explains why there are less than 30 companies in the whole world that can produce them. China, for instance, has invested more than 300 billion yuan (approximately $45 billion USD) in just one of these companies – BOE – over the past 14 years.

Panox Display has been involved in the display industry for many years and has built strong and long-term partner relationships with many of the biggest OLED and LCD panel manufacturers. As a result, we are able to offer our clients guaranteed access to display products from the biggest manufacturers.

LG Display was, until 2021, the No. 1 display panel manufacturer in the world. Owned by LG Group and headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, it has R&D, production, and trade institutions in China, Japan, South Korea, the United States, and Europe.

Founded in 2001, AUO – or AU Optronics – is the world’s leading TFT-LCD panel manufacturer (with a 16% market share) that designs, develops, and manufactures the world’s top three liquid crystal displays. With panels ranging from as small as 1.5 inches to 46 inches, it boasts one of the world"s few large-, medium -and small-sized product lines.

AUO offers advanced display integration solutions with innovative technologies, including 4K2K ultra-high resolution, 3D, ultra-thin, narrow bezel, transparent display, LTPS, OLED, and touch solutions. AOU has the most complete generation production line, ranging from 3.5G to 8.5G, offering panel products for a variety of LCD applications in a range of sizes, from as small as 1.2 inches to 71 inches.

Now Sharp is still top 10 TV brands all over the world. Just like BOE, Sharp produce LCDs in all kinds of size. Including small LCD (3.5 inch~9.1 inch), medium LCD (10.1 ~27 inch), large LCD (31.5~110 inch). Sharp LCD has been used on Iphone series for a long time.

Beside those current LCDs, the industrial LCD of Sharp is also excellent and widely used in public facilities, factories, and vehicles. The Sharp industrial LCD, just means solid, high brightness, super long working time, highest stability.

Since its establishment, Truly Semiconductors has focused on researching, developing, and manufacturing liquid crystal flat panel displays. Now, after twenty years of development, it is the biggest small- and medium-sized flat panel display manufacturer in China.

Truly’s factory in Shanwei City is enormous, covering an area of 1 million square meters, with a net housing area of more than 100,000 square meters. It includes five LCD production lines, one OLED production line, three touch screen production lines, and several COG, LCM, MDS, CCM, TAB, and SMT production lines.

Its world-class production lines produce LCD displays, liquid crystal display modules (LCMs), OLED displays, resistive and capacitive touch screens (touch panels), micro camera modules (CCMs), and GPS receiving modules, with such products widely used in the smartphone, automobile, and medical industries. The LCD products it offers include TFT, TN, Color TN with Black Mark (TN type LCD display for onboard machines), STN, FSTN, 65K color, and 262K color or above CSTN, COG, COF, and TAB modules.

In its early days, Innolux attached great importance to researching and developing new products. Mobile phones, portable and mounted DVD players, digital cameras, games consoles, PDA LCDs, and other star products were put into mass production and quickly captured the market, winning the company considerable market share.

Looking forward to the future, the group of photoelectric will continue to deep LCD display field, is committed to the development of plane display core technology, make good use of global operations mechanism and depth of division of labor, promise customers high-quality products and services, become the world"s top display system suppliers, in 2006 in the global mobile phone color display market leader, become "Foxconn technology" future sustained rapid growth of the engine.

Founded in June 1998, Hannstar specializes in producing thin-film transistor liquid crystal display panels, mainly for use in monitors, notebook displays and televisions. It was the first company in Taiwan to adopt the world’s top ultra-wide perspective technology (AS-IPS).

The company has three LCD factories and one LCM factory. It has acquired state-of-the-art TFT-LCD manufacturing technology, which enables it to achieve the highest efficiency in the mass production of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display production technology. Its customers include many of the biggest and most well-known electronics companies and computer manufacturers in Taiwan and overseas.

TCL CSOT – short for TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology (TCL CSOT) – was founded in 2009 and is an innovative technology enterprise that focuses on the production of semiconductor displays. As one of the global leaders in semiconductor display market, it has bases in Shenzhen, Wuhan, Huizhou, Suzhou, Guangzhou, and India, with nine panel production lines and five large modules bases.

TCL CSOT actively produces Mini LED, Micro LED, flexible OLED, printing OLED, and other new display technologies. Its product range is vast – including large, medium, and small panels and touch modules, electronic whiteboards, splicing walls, automotive displays, gaming monitors, and other high-end display application fields – which has enabled it to become a leading player in the global panel industry.

In the first quarter of 2022, TCL CSOT’s TV panels ranked second in the market, 55 inches, 65 " and 75 inches second, 8K, 120Hz first, the first, interactive whiteboard and digital sign plate; LTPS flat panel, the second, LTPS and flexible OLED fourth.

EDO (also known as EverDisplay Optonics) was founded in October 2012 and focuses on the production of small- and medium-sized high-resolution AMOLED semiconductor display panels.

Tianma Microelectronics was founded in 1983 and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 1995. It is a high-tech enterprise specializing in the production of liquid crystal displays (LCD) and liquid crystal display modules (LCM).

After more than 30 years of development, it has grown into a large publicly listed company integrating LCD research and development, design, production, sales, and servicing. Over the years, it has expanded by investing in the construction of STN-LCD, CSTN-LCD, TFT-LCD and CF production lines and module factories across China (with locations in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan and Xiamen), as well R&D centers and offices in Europe, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

JDI (Japan Display Inc.) was established on November 15, 2011, as a joint venture between the Industrial Innovation Corporation, Sony, Hitachi, and Toshiba. It is dedicated to the production and development of small-sized displays. It mainly produces small- and medium-sized LCD display panels for use in the automotive, medical, and industrial fields, as well as personal devices including smartphones, tablets, and wearables.

Although Sony’s TVs use display panels from TCL CSOT (VA panel), Samsung. Sony still produces the world’s best micro-OLED display panels. Sony has many micro OLED model such as 0.23 inch, 0.39 inch, 0.5 inch, 0.64 inch, 0.68 inch, 0.71 inch. Panox Display used to test and sell many of them, compare to other micro OLED manufacuturers, Sony`s micro OLEDs are with the best image quality and highest brightness (3000 nits max).

His visit is likely aimed at winning supply orders for liquid crystal display (LCD) panels made by TCL subsidiary CSOT from the iPhone maker for use on its tablets and MacBooks, sources said.

BOE is already supplying LCD panels to Apple for MacBooks and iPads. According to analyst firm Omdia, the Chinese company is expected to be the largest supplier of LCD panels for iPads this year.

CSOT’s expansion plan will, besides BOE, also threaten South Korean display maker LG Display, which leads the supply of LCD panels to Apple for high-end devices.

LG Display is expected to supply 14.8 million LCD panels to Apple for MacBooks this year, according to Omdia, making its share in this specific supply chain 55%.

The South Korean tech giant recently reduced its LCD panel orders from BOE because the latter refused to pay royalties. Samsung had recently demanded royalty payment from the Chinese panel maker for using its brand in marketing.

In this context, the global consumer electronics market where LCD is located is affected in many ways. First of all, due to the pull of the economy, purchasing power can still remain strong, especially the commercial and education market demand in the North American market will remain relatively strong. There is also a downside. Due to the promotion of consumer demand in the early stage, especially the resident assistance policy, the phenomenon of demand overdraft has already occurred, and consumer demand will be affected by demand overdraft, and the future trend is not optimistic.

From the perspective of LCD panel shipment performance, according to the shipment performance of the four major mainstream LCD applications such as TV, Monitor, Notebook, and Mobile in 2021, it shows the characteristics of “weak at both ends and strong in the middle”. Looking forward to 2022, the shipments of LCD for mobile phones are expected to remain relatively stable, while the shipments of large-size LCD panel applications such as Notebook, Monitor, and TV have experienced a year-on-year decline of varying degrees due to the fading dividends of the epidemic, but the shipment area of large-size panels has performed significantly better than performance in terms of shipments. From the perspective of notebook LCD shipment performance, it is expected that the shipment area in 2022 will decrease by 3.8% year on year, and the decline in the area is lower than the decline in quantity. The shipment area of Monitor and TV panels can still maintain relatively good growth. The area growth brought about by large size is still the most effective way for LCD panel manufacturers to reduce production capacity.

Among large-size LCD applications, TV panels are the absolute main force in reducing production capacity. From the perspective of the shipment area in the first three quarters of 2021, TV panel shipments account for more than 70% of all application panel shipments. In the future, it is expected that the global display panel market will still exhibit cyclical fluctuations, and TV panels will still undertake the important task of reducing production capacity. Since the second half of 2020, the LCD panel price, especially the increase in the price of large-size panels, has driven the profitability of LCD manufacturers to improve significantly. At present, manufacturers are still in a period of high profitability. Of course, it cannot be ignored that the price of large-size panels continues to decline. It is expected to face profit challenges in 2022. The profitability of LCD manufacturers will face differentiation, and some manufacturers may fall into loss expectations.

From the perspective of production capacity investment, investment in the global display panel market will show two characteristics: first, the pace of investment in new LCD lines by panel manufacturers has slowed down significantly; second, investment in OLED will remain active, but the direction of investment in OLED will change. Significant changes occurred.

First of all, it turns out that panel manufacturers are very active in investing in small-sized OLEDs, especially flexible OLEDs. The future investment strategy will shift from small-sized to medium-to-large-sized, and from low-generation (6th generation) to mid-to-high-generation lines. According to statistics, it is expected that three 8.5-generation OLED production lines will usher in mass production by 2025. At the same time, the change of OLED investment direction will also change from the original Flexible OLED to multi-technology, WOLED will continue to expand production, and QD-OLED production capacity will continue to increase. At present, panel manufacturers represented by Korean factories（SAMSUNG & LG） are very active in investing in Hybrid OLED. Statistics show that it is expected that the global OLED display panel production area will continue to grow by more than 10% by 2025, especially with the gradual mass production of high-generation OLED production lines. It is expected that QD-OLED and Hybrid OLED will play an increasingly important role in the global OLED panel market from 2023.

Although the investment pace of panel manufacturers in LCD panels has slowed down, Chinese panel manufacturers still maintain a positive strategy for the expansion of existing production lines. The expansion of production will also drive the continuous growth of the supply area of LCD panels. According to statistics, it is expected that the global display panel production capacity will reach a high-speed growth of 12% year-on-year in 2022, and the overall production capacity growth rate will reach the largest increase since 2013. Therefore, it can be predicted that the pressure on panel manufacturers to reduce production capacity in 2022 should not be underestimated.

How will the global display industry pattern evolve? In 2021, an obvious “one superpower, many strong” competition pattern has been formed. BOE maintains a very clear leading edge in all applications. The market share of each application market has exceeded 20% in terms of the number of shipments and shipment area, and the leading edge is obvious. There is an imbalance in other panel manufacturers. Most manufacturers have certain competitive advantages in some fields, but the overall competitiveness is still not strong. For example, TCL (CSOT) and HKC can maintain a market share of about 15% in the TV panel market. It cannot be ignored that the performance of the IT application panel and the Mobile application panel is still relatively weak. Under this competitive landscape, it is expected that Chinese panel manufacturers including TCL and HKC will adopt active strategies for LCD applications other than TV in the future, including the expansion of existing production lines, and strive for opportunities to increase investment in new production lines.

Let’s look at the evolution of the competitive landscape of OLED. At present, OLED technology, especially in mobile phone applications, has gradually gained popularity. According to statistics, the overall proportion of OLED in the global smartphone shipments will reach nearly 40% in 2021, and will continue to grow in the future. The proportion will be close to 50% before 2025. In particular, the penetration rate of flexible OLEDs in mobile phone applications has shown a trend of significant growth. In 2021, the overall proportion will reach 22%, and it is expected that this proportion will continue to increase to 33% by 2023. From the perspective of panel makers, currently, flexible OLEDs are still dominated by Korean factories. Samsung Display will account for more than 50% of the entire global flexible OLED market in 2021. Although it will shrink due to the increase in production capacity from Chinese panel makers, it will also shrink in 2022. But it will still maintain a share of about 50% in 2022. Chinese panel manufacturers are particularly active in capacity expansion, especially BOE, TCL, and Visionox are all actively deploying flexible OLEDs. It is expected that the market share in 2022 will increase significantly compared to 2021.

Changes in the panel supply pattern have a huge impact on the global display industry, and will inevitably bring about changes in the industrial chain cooperation model. Under the current competitive landscape and environmental background, the global display industry should pay special attention to the industry chain.

The first is the upstream material supply chain. The shortage of upstream materials, especially semiconductor materials, has accelerated the restructuring of the upstream supply chain in the past year or so. Panel manufacturers pay more attention to the risk management of the supply chain. Chinese panel manufacturers will continue to expand and cooperate with local manufacturers. BOE is constantly introducing more local partners, and will continue to strengthen its thinking on display semiconductor materials in the future; TCL will also introduce more local supply chains to prevent supply chain risks and actively seek win-win cooperation with upstream manufacturers situation. From the downstream point of view, the diversified layout of the supply chain will become an obvious trend to prevent supply chain risks and achieve the purpose of supply chain balance.

In 2022, the overall demand for TV panels is not optimistic, but there are structural opportunities. The famous brand’s overall stocking strategy tends to be conservative, which affects the number of panel shipments to maintain a year-on-year downward trend. However, thanks to the accelerated promotion of large-scale size, the shipment area continues to increase. At the same time, from the perspective of subdivisions, although the performance of the 8K LCD market is mediocre, the shipment scale of OLED panels and high refresh rate panels will expand significantly, which is worth looking forward to. Especially in 2022, Samsung Electronics and other leading TV manufacturers will join the OLED camp, and Samsung Electronics will also carry out active and strategic cooperation with LGD in the WOLED field, which is expected to drive the global OLED TV and OLED TV panel shipments to continue to expand. According to statistics, the number of OLED TV panel shipments in 2021 will reach 7.6 million units, a year-on-year increase of 72.2%. It is estimated that the global OLED TV panel shipment scale will exceed 10 million units in 2022, with a year-on-year growth rate of 47.1%.

On the whole, in 2022, the plans of various panel factories will gradually become differentiated, the supply scale of panel factories in mainland China will continue to increase, and Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers have reduced the number of TV panels planned to vary degrees.

In 2022, the overall LCD TV supply and demand environment will be loose. In the first quarter, there will be excess supply in the off-season, and panel prices will continue to decline, but the decline will gradually narrow. In the second quarter, supply and demand will tend to balance, and panel prices are expected to stabilize.

The gradual increase in the production capacity of displayers, coupled with the growth of LCD panel manufacturers in monitor display supply planning, is expected to maintain a growth trend in the supply trend of display panels in 2022. Combined with the changes in the demand structure, the overall supply and demand situation in 2022 will be relatively loose. Therefore, it will lead to a continuous decline in the cost of displayer panels in at least the first half of 2022. Affected by the demand structure, the upgrade momentum of the monitor market will slow down, but there are still representative markets with growth potential, such as the Gaming monitor, which is driven by the dual engines of 240Hz and OLED, and the Gaming displayer market in 2022 can still maintain positive growth; Another example is Ultrawide displayer. Under the influence of the active strategy of suppliers, the joint force of the entire supply chain will promote the positive growth of the Ultrawide displayer market in 2022; the Curved surface LCD market will enter a state of slow growth, with the hope that the market can find new growth momentum.

With the growth of Notebook LCD production capacity, especially the mid-to-high-end production capacity, the supply shortage of Notebooks will be significantly eased in 2022. From the purchasing point of view, there is a certain risk of saturation in the notebook market in 2022. Therefore, in 2022, we should be alert to the risk of oversupply. In this process, there is still a positive side, such as the accelerated trend of large-scale LCD size and structural upgrading, etc. Accelerating this change will have a better impact on the market.

By sorting out the development potential of 5 core technologies such as Gaming, OLED, LTPS, Oxide, and Mini-LED in LCD panel applications for Notebook, we believe that on the whole, in 2022, the situation of the coexistence of multiple new notebook technologies and development and competition will become more obvious. In the process, the technologies with the greatest development potential in 2022 are Gaming, OLED, and LTPS; Oxide has slowed down in the past 2 years due to the influence of certain factors, but we believe that after 2023, Oxide will usher in new. The development of Mini-LED is limited in the future due to the high cost.

In 2021, under the panel supply pattern with the participation of BOE and Samsung Display, and more players, the competition in the smartphone panel market will show a hot trend, and the integration of the industry chain will also accelerate. In terms of technology types, the trend of the proportion of each technology type shows a differentiation phenomenon. Among them, the demand for flexible OLED continues to grow driven by the supply side. It is estimated that by 2025, the market share of flexible OLED smartphone panels will reach about 33%; In addition to the growth of flexible OLEDs, the penetration rates of a-Si（IPS）, LTPS, rigid OLEDs, etc. are all in a downward trend, forming a “hamburger” shape market.

In recent years, smartphone terminal brands have maintained high inventory levels. As of the end of 2021, there will still be a lot of inventory in some technology-specific panels, but the demand for flexible OLED panels for high-end brands in 2022 will still show a growing trend. The structure of the supply chain is shifting to mainland China. At the same time, flexible OLED panel factories in mainland China will also grow rapidly, and the customer structure will be further enriched.

The foldable smartphone has great growth potential in the next 3 years. Statistics show that the global shipments of folding display panels will be close to 13 million units in 2021, and it is expected to be close to 80 million units by 2025. The compound growth rate from 2019 to 2025 will reach About 88%, showing a trend of rapid growth. From the perspective of manufacturers, Samsung Display, a Korean manufacturer, will continue to dominate for a long time, and the global foldable display panel market share will stabilize at around 80%. More and more Chinese panel manufacturers are participating, such as BOE, TCL, Visionox, and other manufacturers, but based on the current capacity planning and overall technical strength of Chinese panel manufacturers, we believe that the scale of shipments is still relatively limited, and the proportion of Chinese panel manufacturers will be around 20%.

In terms of technology, the development trend of the in-vehicle displays toward large size and high resolution is also very clear. At the same time, in the future, there will be more and more car brands and models equipped with OLED. However, considering that it is more difficult to apply vehicle display technology, it is estimated that by 2025, the shipment of OLED vehicle displays will be about 3 million pcs. Mini-LED backlight products have been mass-produced in other applications, but currently, there are relatively few applications in the automotive field. There are already models released, and mass production is expected to be achieved in 2022. Mini-LED backlight is an upgrade of a-Si LCD, and each panel factory has a layout. Therefore, we expect that by 2025, the shipment of Mini-LED backlight vehicle display products will reach about 4 million pieces, with rapid growth.

In summary, the LCD applications and market in 2022 will see significant technological advances alongside the challenges. As an LCD supplier and manufacturer, VISLCD is optimistic about the future of LCD development and will maintain stable shipments and reasonable market prices, regardless of whether the market is hot or the demand is slow so that we can move forward together with our customers.

Faced with a reduced workforce caused by travel bans and quarantine conditions, LCD and OLED fabrication plants (fabs) across China struggled to resume normal operations in early‐ to mid‐February. Chinese LCD fabs were only expected to have a capacity utilization of 70 to 75 percent for the month compared to a normal rate of 90 to 95 percent, according to research from Omdia Display.

The biggest impact is in LCD displays for TVs and notebook computers. By late 2019, the prolonged issue of LCD panel over‐supply driven by Chinese fabs had begun to reverse course as Korean manufacturers restructured their capacity, shutting down some fabs and converting others to OLED production. According to Hsieh, concerns about an LCD panel supply going forward already had spurred some TV manufacturers to increase orders, and now that LCD production in China is slowing as a result of the COVID‐19 outbreak, LCD panel makers are seeking sharp price increases from their original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers, with a month‐to‐month jump of as much as 10 percent in some cases.

Omdia had originally forecast that the price for an open‐cell LCD TV panel was going to rise by $1 or $2 per month in February, but the actual increase may wind up being $3 to $5 for the month. “The problem is the coronavirus is coming so fast [that] the panel maker has been given a very good reason to increase the price radically,” Hsieh says. He also expects prices to increase for notebook displays, for which he predicts a 30–40 percent decrease in production for 2020"s first financial quarter (Q1), because of shortages in LCD modules.

In Wuhan itself, there are five major fabs, with four making smartphone displays. China Star and Tianma each operate a low‐temperature polycrystalline silicon LCD fab and a flexible OLED fab in the city, while BOE has a new Gen 10.5 LCD plant aimed at TV panels. Hsieh says that the China Star and Tianma OLED fabs are both in the ramping‐up stages, and the new BOE fab also is moving slowly. The biggest impact of COVID‐19 in Wuhan may be on the China Star Gen 6 OLED plant. Along with BOE, it"s slated to be a key supplier of flexible OLED panels for Lenovo"s new Motorola Razr foldable phone. “It"s unfortunate timing,” Hsieh says. —Glen Dickson