[MWC 2019] The new form factor, foldable phone wars heat up

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Reporter : Daejeong Yoon

Smartphone makers are promoting the new form factor, foldable phones at MWC 2019 started on February 27 and it runs until 29 in Barcelona Spain.

The show is buzzing with products from big-name tech companies, including Samsung Electronics and Huawei,TCL, LG Electronics being unveiled. That includes a variety of phones with foldable screens.

Samsung unveiled foldable phone ‘Galaxy Fold’ to customer, highly touted at the Samsung Galaxy unpacked event.

In folding ‘Galaxy Fold’ features a 7.3-inch QXGA + resolution OLED screen and it was built to be compact size with 4.6-inch HD + resolution OLED when folded.

And Huawei announced its own foldable phone “Mate X” uses roll out foldable technology, it is surrounded by a 6.6-inch main OLED on the front and a 6.38-inch on the back. It is 8.7 inches when it is opened, 1.4 inches bigger than Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Fold.

Mate X’s front display has 2480 × 1148 resolution with a 19.5: 9 aspect ratio. The back OLED has a 2480 × 892 resolution with a 25: 9 aspect ratio. When you flip it open, the resolution is 2480 × 2200 with an aspect ratio of 8: 7.1. .

Also, TCL announced the prototype device uses the company’s proprietary “DragonHinge” mechanism to fold and unfold the screen, it has 7.2-inch screen.

According to TCL, this device will build a production version that is slated for release by 2021.

Lastly, LG showed off V50 which is similar to a folding phone, it does have an optional case with a whole second screen on it. With two near-identical phone displays next to each other, the functional split-screen allows multitasking and gaming easily.

What is the cost of OLED materials for the Galaxy F?

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What will be the price of foldable phone Galaxy F, which is expected to be on the market this year, is a concern for people around the world. Samsung Display is the only company that can mass-produce Foldable OLEDs with in-folding type used by Galaxy F.

Galaxy F with 7.29-inch OLED is a digital convergence product that can simultaneously target the smartphone and tablet PC market. The initial sale price will be around $ 2,000, and the estimated sales volume is about 1 million units this year.

The OLED industry is interested in how much the Galaxy F’s foldable OLED panels (including modules) will cost.

According to UBI Research’s material cost analysis data, Samsung Display’s foldable OLED material cost is 2.04 times higher than the Galaxy S10 5.8 inch. This is because the display area has increased, and the yield has been reduced.

Galaxy F, Galaxy S10, and iPhone XS’s flexible OLED material cost analysis shows that the module cost of iPhone XS is the highest at 95.2%, Galaxy S10 at 92.2% and Galaxy F at 89.3%.

The largest OLED business conference, OLED KOREA 2019

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The OLED Korea Conference 2019, organized by UBI Research, will be held on March 6 and 7 at Novotel Ambassador in Gangnam.

The OLED Korea for the fifth consecutive year, the event includes many high profile speakers by having representatives of the industry on board

The conference will feature future forecast of panel market with executives from leading panel makers Samsung and LG Display, another major developers JOLED and TCL, which are pioneering markets for OLED panels with inkjet technologies

In order for OLED industries to grow, not only panel manufacturers but also variety of parts materials, equipment, and technologies need to be developed.

The conference will also include presentations from leading industry analysts from a variety of part and equipment firms.

Particularly, scheduled the session by Nanosys, a company specialized in QD, which will provide an important opportunity to forecast the growth of the QD-OLED business that Samsung Display is discovering as its next-generation business.

The OLED KOREA conference had over 200 attendees at last year.

[Program]

Can the OLED market continue to grow?

OLED Industry and Market Forecast in 2019

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Dr. Choong Hoon YI, UBI Research

How will Korean panel companies attract the OLED industry?

Future Key Technology of OLED

                                                                                                                                                                  Hyein Jeong, Samsung Display

   How to create new value in display industry, LCD or OLED?

                                                                                                                          KY(Stephen) Ko, LG Display

Soluble OLED technology for making large-sized TV market

The Latest Breakthrough of Printing Technology for Next Generation Premium TV Application

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Dr. Jueng-Gil (James) Lee, TCL

   Strategic Market Creation of Printed OLED Display

Dr. Toshiaki Arai, JOLED

   OLEDs state-of-the-art materials: Merck development and latest status

Dr. Remi Anemian, Merck

   Latest Development of Soluble OLED Materials and Application to Mid-to-Large Panel Fabrication

Takeshi Yamada, Sumitomo Chemical

   Inkjet Printing for Flexible and Large-size OLEDs Manufacturing

Kyung-Bin Bae, Kateeva

Next generation OLED application

OLED Micro-displays for VR/AR Applications

Dr. Amal Ghosh, eMagin

   Airborne System & Cabin Integration enhance flight experiences and operations

Dr. Julian Chang, Boeing

Development status of fluorescence and phosphorescent materials

Future Directions for Phosphorescent OLED Displays

Dr. Mike Hack, UDC

   Development history and recent development progress of Blue OLEDs in Idemitsu Kosan

Jisung So, Idemitus Kosan

What level of next generation emitting materials has been developed?

TADF – Recent progress in developing highly efficient blue emitter materials

Dr. Andreas Haldi, Cynora

   Hyperfluorescence™, a Game Changing Technology of OLED Display

Junji Adachi, Kyulux

Film materials essential for OLED module manufacturing

Colorless Polyimides (CPI®) for Flexible Electronics

Dr. Chung-Seock Kang, Kolon

   Optically Clear Adhesives for Future OLED Displays

Sun-Yong Park, 3M

New technology to prepare OLED future

Quantum Dots: Technology Platform for Future Displays

Dr. Nahyoung Kim, Nanosys

   OLED Technologies for AR/VR

 Dr. Hyunkoo Lee, ETRI

   TBD

Dr. Robert Jan Visser, AMAT

   Material Advances for Transparent OLEDs

Dr. Michael Helander, OTI

[Press Release] AMOLED sales to reach USD 32.2 billion in 2019, up 13.8% from 2018

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UBI Research (CEO, Yi, Choonghoon) published the annual OLED report in 2019.

According to the report, the OLED market is expected to reach $ 32.2 billion in 2019 and 13.8% market growth. The market growth is due to the launch of a variety of applications in 2019. Foldable OLED will accelerate the growth of the flexible OLED market as a convergence product that fuses smartphones and tablet PCs, and 8K OLEDs and rollable OLEDs to be launched from 2H 2019 will further solidly support the premium OLED TV market. In addition, an increase in flexible OLED shipments due to improved yields by Chinese panel makers will support growth in the Chinese OLED market.

AMOLED revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018 was $ 7.9 billion, down 3.7% from $ 8.2 billion in the third quarter and down 10.4% from $ 8.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017. The quarterly OLED market was highly volatile due to sales fluctuations at Samsung Display.

Revenue in 2018 was $ 28.3 billion, up 7.1% from $ 26.4 billion in 2017. The growth slowed suddenly compared to growth of 58.7% in 2017. The sluggish growth is attributable to the sluggish OLED smartphone market, which drove the OLED market up until now. The OLED market for smartphones, which was worth $ 24.2 billion in 2017, was only $ 24.5 billion in 2018.

Flexible OLED panels are not being adopted in mid-end smartphones due to the high cost of manufacturing flexible OLED panels for smartphones. As a result, the oversupply will continue due to lack of demand compared to the 6G flexible OLED investment. In the fourth quarter of 2018, there was an oversupply of 31%. In the first quarter of 2019, oversupply will increase to 39% by overlapping seasonal demand decline.

 

LG Display “OLED TV will account for more than 20% in total TV sales revenue.”

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LG Display OLED TV maintained sales revenue, it through conference call, stated it recorded annual sales revenue of 24.3 trillion won and 92.9 billion won operating profit in year of 2018.

LG Display despite of heightened global competition and downward panel price made an operating profit thanks to OLED TV, super large size TV and high resolution products.

Especially large size OLED TV maintained stable productivity and enlarged consumer bracket which enabled 2.9 million shipment on a yearly basis. It recorded gross profit within 5 years of product introduction which resulted in more than 20% in total sales revenue.

4th quarter 2018 revenue of LG display marked 6.95 trillion won TV panels accounts for 36%, mobile panels 28%, notebook and tablet panels 22% and 14% for monitor panels.

Operating profit recorded 279 billion won, 528% increase compared to the same quarter last year, 99% hike compared to last quarter thanks to high priced IT products, new introductions of small and medium size products and high added value products. LG Display aims to focus on OLED business reconstruction Seo Donghee CFO of the company said, “the ratio of OLED revenue was almost nothing 5years ago, now it is 30% this year and we estimate it is going to reach 50% of the total business.”

He also said “we will put in all assets to create new values focusing on OLED business.”

He replied to the question of large size QD-OLED of competitor, it will strengthen ecosystem and overall OLED industry. To the question of 8K and over 70inch large size OLED mass production, he replied that 8K technology is already secured as exhibited at CES2019 and said that large size OLED mass production will utilize the existing know-how of LCD production. In 2019, LG Display’s OLED demand outlook question suggests that demand for more than 14% of all flexible OLED smartphones is expected.

Regarding the large-area OLED and p OLED capacity in 2019, LGD said that the large-area OLED capacity will be completed at 70K per month in Paju and 60K in Q3 in Guangzhou, China and the pOLED capacity is expected to add 30K to the domestic 45K in 2020.

He announced that capex is estimated 8trillion won in 2019 and 4trillion won in 2020, a half of this year. 60% will be for large size OLED and 40% for pOLED. And he said pOLED mass production is currently concentrated on smart phone and cars. He expects good news from car pOLED by end of this year. He also targets over 3.8 million units large size OLED production this year.