Chinese panel manufacturers are turning to the OLED market

Faced with the long-term downturn in the global liquid crystal display (LCD) market, Chinese panel manufacturers are considering turning to OLED panels. If Chinese panel manufacturers enter the OLED market, the "iteration" speed of the global TV market will accelerate.

Industry observers said Chinese panel makers are considering increasing the proportion of OLED panel products as they suffer from deteriorating profitability due to oversupply of LCD panels and low-price competition. In fact, the number of Chinese companies entering the OLED TV market has rapidly increased from two in 2013 to nine this year.

Data from market research firm IHS Markit also supports this. It is expected that OLED TV sales in the Chinese market will reach 160,000 units this year, about one-seventh of the 1.144 million units sold in the European market. However, this number is expected to rise rapidly to 455,000 units next year, 693,000 units in 2021, and 1.308 million units in 2022.

OLED TV sales are expected to surge not only in China but also in other Asian countries such as South Korea and Japan. IHS Markit predicts that OLED TV sales in Asia will increase significantly from 927,000 units this year to 1.585 million units in 2020, 2.107 million units in 2021 and 3.609 million units in 2023.

Samsung Display plans to start producing quantum dot (QD) displays in 2021, which will accelerate the transition away from liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs, an era that began in the mid-1990s and is expected to end in 2020, industry analysts said.

The shift of Chinese companies to OLED TVs will strengthen the positions of Samsung and LG as the No. 1 and No. 2 players in the global TV market. In the OLED market, LG Electronics is the leader, with a market share of 59.2% in the first half of this year.

An industry insider said that due to China's huge investment, China surpassed South Korea in the LCD display market in a short period of time. Such an aggressive strategy accelerated the decline of the LCD panel market. South Korean panel manufacturers should be prepared for the impact of China in the OLED field.