Next-generation display technology QD-OLED
"If we can occupy the next-generation display market and change the structure of the display industry, we will be able to continue to remain the number one in the world." This is Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong at the Samsung Display New Investment and Win-Win Cooperation Agreement Ceremony in October last year Emphasized. This shows that Samsung is determined to win the next-generation panel market.
OELD will replace LCD
Recently, Cui Junsen, vice president of Samsung Display, informed Samsung's plan to withdraw from the LCD business. The rumors of Samsung's withdrawal from the LCD panel industry have finally been confirmed. So far, the big three LCD panels (LG, Panasonic and Samsung) have announced the closure of LCD factories.
The high-profile announcement of Samsung’s exit from the LCD business corresponds to an old Reuters report that once again attracted people’s attention: “Samsung announced an investment of US$10.7 billion in October 2019 to strengthen QLED technology and production capacity. Samsung will fully switch to QD-OLED quantum dot display panels (a hybrid of quantum dots and OLED) and OLED display panels with higher product positioning and greater profit."
QD-OLED (or OLED) is considered to be one of the next generation display technologies after LCD. Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Li Jayyong announced before: Samsung Display will invest 10 trillion won (another 3.1 trillion won for the research and development of next-generation display technology) to build the world's first 8.5-generation display at the Asan plant QD-OLED production line. The new production line will be put into production in 2021, with an initial monthly capacity of 30,000 glass substrates, and will produce 65-inch or larger QD-OLEDs, which will break LGD's monopoly in the OLED TV panel market in one fell swoop.
Market downturn, transformation is the only way
At present, the battle for the route of next-generation display technology is also focused on the direction of collective transformation of Korean panel manufacturers. One is LED/QD-OLED; the other is Micro LED. Samsung Electronics implements a dual-track strategy of parallel QLED and Micro LED, which can be described as double insurance. QLED is essentially liquid crystal technology, and Samsung Electronics will gradually shift its focus to Micro LED. However, it will take three to five years for Micro LED technology to be industrialized, and the cost is very high, which is difficult for ordinary consumers to accept, and it is unlikely to be popular in the market in the short term.
Luffy Lin, chief analyst of Smart Display, believes that at present, QD-OLED has become the only choice for Samsung Display, and it is the best choice. On the one hand, Samsung has years of accumulation in OLED technology and has a monopoly in the small and medium-sized OLED market for smartphones and notebook computers. Not only that, Samsung Display produced large-size OLED panels in 2013, but it withdrew from the large-size OLED market in 2015 due to a wrong technical route. Now that Samsung returns to the OLED market with QD-OLED, it may have solved technical problems such as lifespan and burn-in. On the other hand, OLED TVs have gained a firm foothold in the global high-end TV market. At present, 15 TV manufacturers worldwide have joined the OLED TV camp, but only LGD is the only OLED TV panel manufacturer, and the market potential of OLED TVs has not been fully tapped. IHS Markit predicts that the global OLED TV market sales will reach 3 million units in 2019, increase to 5.5 million units in 2020, 7.1 million units by 2021, and 10 million units by 2022. By 2021 or 2022, when Samsung Display starts mass production of QD-OLED panels, the growth rate of OLED TVs is expected to accelerate.
However, the yield problem of Samsung's QD-OLED after production is worthy of attention. Because LGD's large-size OLED panel yield rate climbs three or four years before it has a certain increase, it can make OLED TV prices have a certain market competitiveness. Samsung and others who seize the high ground of the panel market also face the same problems.
In my opinion, Samsung Electronics ALL in QD-OLED, on the one hand, is in a strategic position to seize the next-generation display panel technology and maintain a competitive advantage and generation gap. But on the one hand, it is also forced to take the initiative in the TV LCD panel market through a large amount of investment in mainland China. The current LCD panel market is sluggish and prices continue to decline. The TV LCD panel production line has become the main culprit that drags down South Korean panel manufacturers, forcing South Korean panel manufacturers represented by Samsung to not continue to survive and seek transformation.