OLED Display Forecasts and Technologies 2019-2029: The Global Rise of Flexible and Foldable Displays from IDTechEx Research includes forecasts that the global OLED industry totaled $25.5 billion last year, and will rise to $30.3 billion in 2019.
Over $15 billion has been invested in the OLED-display industry from 2016 to 2018 with panel makers mainly based in China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. The investment is coming from the need to differentiate products with better screens and new form factors, with plastic-based OLEDs becoming the norm (in rigid format) leading to truly flexible OLED displays -- foldable displays being the first commercial example of that, expected in 2019.
OLEDs for cellphones dominate the OLED sector, comprising of 81% of the market revenue in 2018. The second largest sector was OLED TVs, which are 16% of the total market by revenue in 2018. Despite this share, OLED TVs are 40% of the market by sq-meter area of display. Therein is the challenge for larger-area displays -- cellphones have smaller displays and can command premium margins, but larger devices (including tablets) typically have lower price points and lower margins but need larger, more expensive screens (albeit with lower resolution). The third largest OLED application is wearables, which is 2% of the total OLED display market value and 0.4% by area in 2018. The thinness, flexibility and appearance of the display are desirable versus LCDs.
Over $15 billion has been invested in the OLED-display industry from 2016 to 2018 with panel makers mainly based in China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. The investment is coming from the need to differentiate products with better screens and new form factors, with plastic-based OLEDs becoming the norm (in rigid format) leading to truly flexible OLED displays -- foldable displays being the first commercial example of that, expected in 2019.
OLEDs for cellphones dominate the OLED sector, comprising of 81% of the market revenue in 2018. The second largest sector was OLED TVs, which are 16% of the total market by revenue in 2018. Despite this share, OLED TVs are 40% of the market by sq-meter area of display. Therein is the challenge for larger-area displays -- cellphones have smaller displays and can command premium margins, but larger devices (including tablets) typically have lower price points and lower margins but need larger, more expensive screens (albeit with lower resolution). The third largest OLED application is wearables, which is 2% of the total OLED display market value and 0.4% by area in 2018. The thinness, flexibility and appearance of the display are desirable versus LCDs.