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1Q of 2022 OLED Emitting Material Market $420 million, up 9% Compared to the Same Quarter of the Previous Year

According to “2Q22 OLED Emitting Material Market Track”, a quarterly report published by UBI Research, the sales of emitting materials in the first quarter were $421 million, down 21.1% (QoQ) from $533 million in the previous quarter but was an increase by 9% (YoY)when compared to $386 million in the first quarter of 2021.
Although sales of emitting materials for TV and mobile devices decreased compared to the previous quarter, IT sales recorded a meaningful figure of $6.6 million. Although sales fluctuate depending on seasonal demand for applied products, if the sales of emitting materials are analyzed by application product, TV use is gradually increasing.

The top 3 companies in 1Q sales were UDC($86.6 million), DuPont($41.3 million), and Duksan($37.5 million). Duksan became the number one company in sales as a Korean company. The overall sales of luminescent materials in the first quarter decreased compared to the previous quarter but only UDC’s sales increased. Sales decreased to $421.5 million in 1Q22 from $533.8 million in 4Q21. However, UDC’s 1Q22 sales increased to $86.6 million from 4Q21’s sales of $85.5 million. It is estimated that this is due to the rise in the price of rare earth metals, a key material for manufacturing dopant.
Estimated sales of emitting materials in 2022 are $1.77 billion and are expected to grow to $2.4 billion in 2026.
By application product, the projected sales of emitting materials for smartphones this year are $1.4 billion, accounting for 79% of the total.
Of the projected sales in 2026, emitting materials for TV are expected to reach $550 million, which is expected to increase by 23%. In addition, emitting materials for IT are expected to account for 9% of $210 million.

“OLED Emitting Material Market Track” surveys and analyzes the market for quarterly OLED emitting materials. The total market of light emitting materials was identified by examining sales by light emitting layer and common layer. Performance analysis was categorized by country, panel maker, application product, layer, and OLED method (RGB, WRGB, QD-OLED). In addition, OLED market information for the next five years (up to 2026) was forecasted by predicting the amount of emitting material usage and sales by company. The quarterly market track provides necessary information to industry professionals who lead the OLED industry.

Solution Process OLED, Max. 40% Decrease in Component Material Cost Possible Compared to WRGB

According to 2017 Solution Process OLED Annual Report published by UBI Research, when solution process (ink-jet printing) is applied to large area OLED, it could reduce up to 40% of component material cost, and approximately more than 18% of production cost compared to WRGB process that uses evaporation method.

 

Solution process is a technology that can manufacture RGB pixel structure of large size OLED panel without cutting mother glass using Gen8 manufacturing equipment or larger.

 

UBI Research analyst Hyunjun Jang explained that the solution process applied OLED has a simpler panel structure with 5 layers compared to 20 layers of WRGB OLED. WRGB OLED process material usage efficiency is only at 40% but solution process application could increase this to over 90%. Jang added that the lack of color filter is a factor that could decrease panel production price by reducing development cost. Particularly, this can greatly reduce emitting materials usage which occupies much of materials cost and contribute considerably to the fall in production cost. Furthermore, he added that cost setting of soluble emitting material per gram will be an important factor in production cost decrease and emphasized that organic material usage greatly decreases when soluble emitting materials are used but must consider price increase due to solvent cost, production cost, and development cost.

 

Solution process technology continues to receive attention as a key technology that can lead popularization of large area OLED, and key AMOLED panel companies are carrying out development.

 

In terms of technology, solution process OLED has lower emitting efficiency and short lifetime as diverse solvent is added to existing evaporation materials to transform into ink leading to low purity. This has been an important issue for panel and material companies for past several years. To improve this, DuPont, Merck, Sumitomo Chemical and others have been actively developing soluble OLED emitting materials. Much like evaporation materials, blue materials showed particular difficulty in performance improvement. However, at present significant portion of technology development has been carried out and investigation shows approximately 80% of lifetime and efficacy of has been achieved compared to evaporation materials.

 

2017 Solution Process OLED Annual Report compared and analysed WRGB OLED and solution process OLED’s competitiveness in terms of process, materials, and cost. Key issues, soluble OLED emitting materials development status, key companies’ trend, and solution process OLED market are analysed from various perspectives.

<Source: WRGB OLED and solution process OLED production cost comparison, UBI Research 2017 Solution Process OLED Annual Report>

When 55inch OLED TV below US$ 1,000 will be realized?

At an analytical seminar on market entry potential of OLED and Solution Process OLED having been held in Small& Medium Business Center on October 14th, Manager Jeong Seong-jin of DuPont had time of introducing tendency regarding soluble OLED material and contents of the latest development.
Manager Jeong said that soluble OLED material and processing technology were on the verge of completion, but problems about how to complete Solution Process by combining it was still remained as issues, and also stated that Material performance (T95>9k hr, CE>25 cd/A) and Uniform printing (SRU>0.95), Contain (performance 90% of flood print), Conformal Drying (luminance aperture>95%) would be key elements.

<4 key elements to make commercialization of Solution Process>

Dupont progressed R&D on Solution Process previously by utilizing Nozzle Printing method that used Surface Energy Modification. This method had merits such like controlling quantity was easy and the nozzle was not clogged up due to constant supply of solution, there were limitations according to panel material together with a lot of raw material consumption.
Dupont lighted up a fact that R&D has been progressed to the direction of deposing organic materials after forming Bank with Ink Jet Printing method owing to such problems and Ink Jet market having been enlarged recently, and then opened Ink Jet Material performance.
When comparing with datum pronounced in 2016 2nd OLED Korea Conference by Dupont, the life seems to be developed for Red and Green in priority, and efficiency for Blue. Approximately 6% of Red life and two times of Green were improved, and about 10% of Blue efficiency was turned out to be increased.
Manager Jeong Seong-jin put emphasis by saying “In order to expand market to OLED from display market having been enlarged gradually, adoption of Solution Process is essential, and concentration for developing soluble OLED luminescence material will be made so that 55inch OLED TV below US$ 1,000 could be produced massively until 2020 by using Solution Process in set makers.”

<Performance comparison with existing Ink Jet material of DuPont>