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Tianma’s OLED shipments for smartphones were second only to BOE among Chinese makers

TIANMA

TIANMA

It was found that Tianma, a Chinese OLED panel supplier, supplied the second most OLED panels for smartphones after BOE in the first quarter of 2023. In the meantime, among Chinese companies, Visionox has always been in second place after BOE in OLED shipments for smartphones, but it gave way to Tianma for the first time in this first quarter.

Tianma’s major customers include Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, Honor, and Lenovo. It is analyzed that one of the reasons for Tianma’s increase in OLED shipments is that it brought some of TCL CSOT’s shipments to Xiaomi.

Thanks to orders from Xiaomi, Tianma’s panel shipments have soared since the fourth quarter of last year. Tianma’s OLED panel shipments for smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2022 increased by about 3 times compared to the previous quarter, and in the first quarter of 2023, OLED panel shipments for smartphones reached 8.5 million units, an increase of 430% compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

If this atmosphere continues, it is analyzed that there is a possibility that Tianma will overtake Visionox and produce the second largest number of OLED panels for smartphones after BOE in China for the first time this year.

▶ China Trend Report Inquiry

OLED Smartphone Launch Products Slows Down In The First Half of 2022

The number of OLED smartphone launches, which had steadily increased from 2019 to 2021 reached only 110 units in the first half of 2022. 137 units had been released in 2019, 166 units in 2020, and 225 units in 2021. If this industry trend continues in 2022, OLED smartphones expected release will only be similar to 2021 or even slightly fewer than it had been last year.
Most of the smartphones released in the first half of 2022 were made in China. 98 products from China accounted for 89% of market share, followed by 9 products from Korea, 2 from Japan, and 1 from India.
By size, 6.6-inch products were the most with 34 types, followed by 6.4-inch products with 31 types and 6.7-inch products with 21 types. The largest sized product was Vivo’s ‘X Fold’, which was an 8.03-inch foldable. Not including the foldables, Vivo’s ‘X Note’ was the largest at 7.0 inches. The smallest product was Sony’s ‘Xperia 10 IV’, which was 6.0 inches.
By design, 102 types of punch hole models were released, with 4 narrow bezel types, 2 notch types, and 2 UPC types. There were two types of smartphones with UPC (Under Panel Camera) applied: ZTE’s Axon 40 Ultra and Nubia Red Magic 7 Pro.

By resolution, 51 products with 300ppi range, 50 products with 400ppi range, and 9 products with 500ppi or higher were released. No products under 300ppi were released. The product with the highest resolution was Sony’s ‘Xpeia 1 IV’, which had a resolution of 643ppi.
There were three foldable phones released in the first half of the year: Vivo’s ‘X Fold’, Honor’s ‘Magic V’, and Huawei’s ‘Mate Xs2’. All three types of foldable phones have a punch-hole design. The resolution of ‘Mate Xs2’ was 424ppi, which is 10ppi higher than the average OLED smartphones released in the first half of the year. Whereas ‘X Fold’ and ‘Magic V’ were two products with the lowest resolution among OLED smartphones released in the first half of the year.

Fingerprint Full-Screen Smart Phones Begin to Compete

<Vivo’s full screen smart phone with in-display fingerprint scanner, Android authority>

The competition for front fingerprint recognition of smart phones is expected to become hot.

In the smart phone with the existing home button, the front fingerprint sensor was installed on the home button. Fingerprint security enhances security, but recently, full screen Smartphone without home button has been released and fingerprint sensor has been moved to the back of Smartphone. This has caused disadvantages such as an uncomfortable hand shape when touching a finger to the fingerprint sensor and fingerprints on the camera lens.

In order to improve these points and to implement a complete full-screen Smartphone, the development of integrating full-screen fingerprint recognition with display is continuing.

The method of full-screen fingerprint recognition is largely examined by both optical and ultrasonic methods. The optics are inexpensive and easy to mass-produce, but the OLED substrate must be transparent because the sensor is to be located below the OLED panel. Therefore, it is applicable to rigid OLED using glass as a substrate, but it is difficult to apply to flexible OLED using colored PI as a substrate. The ultrasonic method is most stable in accuracy and durability, but it has a disadvantage of high manufacturing cost.

Currently, Chinese set makers have begun to launch smart phones with optical front fingerprint recognition. The Galaxy S10, which will be released next year by Samsung Electronics, is being watched for the adoption of ultrasonic full-screen fingerprint recognition. LG Display is also developing a display with front fingerprint recognition.

As such, the sales for full-screen smart phones with front fingerprint recognition are expected to be started in earnest. Competition in the smartphone market is expected to become more intense in the second half.

Fingerprint full-screen smart phones begin to compete

<Vivo’s full screen smart phone with in-display fingerprint scanner, Android authority>

The competition for front fingerprint recognition of smart phones is expected to become hot.

In the smart phone with the existing home button, the front fingerprint sensor was installed on the home button. Fingerprint security enhances security, but recently, full screen Smartphone without home button has been released and fingerprint sensor has been moved to the back of Smartphone. This has caused disadvantages such as an uncomfortable hand shape when touching a finger to the fingerprint sensor and fingerprints on the camera lens.

In order to improve these points and to implement a complete full-screen Smartphone, the development of integrating full-screen fingerprint recognition with display is continuing.

The method of full-screen fingerprint recognition is largely examined by both optical and ultrasonic methods. The optics are inexpensive and easy to mass-produce, but the OLED substrate must be transparent because the sensor is to be located below the OLED panel. Therefore, it is applicable to rigid OLED using glass as a substrate, but it is difficult to apply to flexible OLED using colored PI as a substrate. The ultrasonic method is most stable in accuracy and durability, but it has a disadvantage of high manufacturing cost.

Currently, Chinese set makers have begun to launch smart phones with optical front fingerprint recognition. The Galaxy S10, which will be released next year by Samsung Electronics, is being watched for the adoption of ultrasonic full-screen fingerprint recognition. LG Display is also developing a display with front fingerprint recognition.

As such, the sales for full-screen smart phones with front fingerprint recognition are expected to be started in earnest. Competition in the smartphone market is expected to become more intense in the second half.

Vivo released OLED smart phone with more than 90% display area.

Vivo, a Chinese Smartphone maker, announced on June 12 that it will launch a new full-screen OLED Smartphone ‘NEX’ as its flagship line.

NEX is the mass production model of ‘APEX’ which Vivo showed in MWC 2018 held in February. By hiding the camera at the top of the Smartphone and embedding fingerprint recognition in the display, Vivo accomplished D.A (display area) up to 91.2%.

The camera is provided in a pop-up form only when the picture is taken with the interfaced application. The speaker is built into the OLED display, and the display carries sound.

<Vivo’s new flagship model ‘NEX’, Source: netmag.pk>

Meanwhile, NEX is to be the first OLED Smartphone with over 90% D.A. Galaxy S8, the first full-screen OLED Smartphone with removing a home button, is 83.6% of D.A. D.A of the Vivo X20 Plus UD, the Smartphone that had the largest D.A to date, is 85.8%. According to GSMARENA, the NEX S, the high-end model of NEX, is equipped with a Snapdragon 845 processor, 8GB RAM, 128/256GB storage and 4000mAh battery in a 6.59 inch FHD OLED. The entry-level model NEX A is applied with Snapdragon 710 Processor, 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage on the same OLED display.

Following OLED, notch design to LCD becomes a marketing trend in 2018?

At the 6th China Information Technology Expo (CITE 2018) held in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China from April 8 to 11, 2018, a number of panel makers and set makers exhibited notch-designed display panels and smart phones.

In CITE 2018, five panel manufacturers exhibited in CITE 2018; BOE, EDO, GVO, Tianma and CSOT. Among them, BOE, Tianma and CSOT exhibited notch-designed display panels.

First, BOE introduced 6.2-inch OLED panels applied with notched design. The OLED panel exhibited by BOE has a resolution of 2992 x 1440 with 537 ppi and 400 nit brightness.

LCD panels also began to adopt Notch Design. Tianma presented a 6.18-inch LCD panel with a notch design. CSOT also exhibited two 6.25-inch LCD panels and a 6.18-inch LCD panel applied with notched design.

<’Notch design’ display panels exhibited in CITE 2018>

Vivo, a Smartphone maker, also exhibited the X21 with a notch design. The X21, released in March, has a resolution of 1080 x 2280 with 6.28 inch screen.

<Vivo X21, OLED Smartphone with notch design>

Since Apple first unveiled its OLED smart phone with the notch design on iPhone X, a number of smart phone makers such as Vivo, Oppo, and Huawei have begun to release OLED smart phones. In this exhibition, many panel makers presented a large number of LCD panels to which Notch Design is applied. Attention is growing whether Notch Design can become a trend in the small and medium sized display market in 2018.

Expect to hit 1 trillion won in AMOLED emitting material market

Following the success of Galaxy S Series using AMOLED, Apple’s iPhone has started to use flexible AMOLED as its basic display, resulting in the spike in demand for Chinese smartphone companies’ AMOLED.

At MWC2017, 13 companies showcased AMOLED-based smartphones. The companies whose market share is expanding in China, the world’s biggest smartphone market, such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE are active to adopt AMOLED smartphone.

<The Number of AMOLED Smartphone Companies at MWC>

With this market trend, the emitting material market for AMOLED is expected to reach 1 trillion won this year.

Hyun Jun Jang, senior researcher of UBI Research forecast that the emitting material market will reach $960 million in 2017 and increase to $33.6 billion in 2021.

<Emitting Material Market Forecast>

According to Hyun Jun Jang, senior researcher, Apple’s AMOLED emitting material market is expected to account for $560 million among $33.6 billion of total emitting material market, and Korea will capture 70% as it is leading the AMOLED panel market while creating a 23.8 billion-dollar market.