Flexible AMOLED display shipments rise with wearables growth

Led by growth in wearables, small- and medium-sized display manufacturers are moving from the production of rigid organic light-emitting diode (OLED) to flexible active-matrix-organic-light-emitting-diode panels, according to IHS, Inc.

In particular, Samsung Display and LG Display are pursuing enhanced technological differentiation for liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels, in order to expand the supply capacity of flexible AMOLED displays. Flexible AMOLED panel shipments are forecast to amount to more than 11 per cent of rigid AMOLED shipments this year.

"When growth in the smartphone market started to slow in 2013, smartphone makers began to adopt lower-priced, higher-quality panels and AMOLED displays lost their competitive edge," said Jerry Kang, principal analyst, emerging display technologies and OLED panels. "Leading panel manufacturers are now developing flexible AMOLED displays to differentiate their offerings from rigid LCD and AMOLED displays used in smartphones and wearable devices. These panels are especially useful in wearable devices, which must be light, thin and consume less power than non-wearable devices."

Declining prices for low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) LCD displays has quickly undermined the price competitiveness of AMOLED panels. "Smartphone makers were unhappy with the price of AMOLED panels, because higher-priced pentile-pixel AMOLED displays had lower sharpness than LTPS LCD displays with same resolution," Kang said. "As the wide colour gamut of AMOLED displays has not been a major differentiation factor in the smartphone panel market, current AMOLED panels will eventually lose their appeal, unless prices decline further."