Flexible display market to ship 800M units by 2020

According to the latest report from IHS, applications ranging from smartphones to giant screens mounted on buildings are set to boost demand for flexible displays in the next seven years—driving nearly 250 times shipment increase from 2013 to 2020. In fact, global shipments of flexible displays are seen to rise to 792 million units in 2020, up from 3.2 million in 2013. Market revenue will climb to $41.3 billion, up from just $100,000 during the same period, added IHS.

"Flexible displays hold enormous potential, creating whole new classes of products and enabling exciting new applications that were impractical or impossible before," said Vinita Jakhanwal, director for mobile and emerging displays and technology at IHS. "From smartphones with displays that curve around the sides, to smart watches with wraparound screens, to tablets and PCs with roll-out displays, to giant video advertisements on curved building walls, the potential uses for flexible displays will be limited only by the imagination of designers."

IHS classifies flexible displays into four generations of technology. The first generation is the durable display panels that are now entering the market. These panels employ a flexible substrate to attain superior thinness and unbreakable ruggedness. However, these displays are flat and cannot be bent or rolled.

Second-generation flexible displays are bendable and conformable, and can be moulded to curved surfaces, maximising space on small form-factor products such as smartphones.

The third generation consists of truly flexible and rollable displays that can be manipulated by end users. These displays will enable a new generation of devices that save space and blur the lines separating traditional product categories, such as smartphones and media tablets.

The fourth generation consists of disposable displays that cost so little that they can serve as a replacement for paper.

With their thin, light and unbreakable nature, flexible displays initially are expected to be used in smaller-sized products such as mobile phones and MP3 players. However, once large-size displays are available, flexible technology will be used in bigger screen-size platforms such as laptops, monitors and TVs.

The largest application for flexible displays during the next several years will be personal electronic devices. This segment will be led by smartphones, with shipments climbing to 351 million units by 2020, up from less than two million this year.