TCL Huxing announced at its 2023 Global Display Ecology Conference on December 7 that IT will mass-produce printed OLED panels in the second half of next year, and take the lead in IT and medical display fields, and released new products such as 65-inch 8K printed OLED curved display and 14-inch 2.8K printed Hybrid OLED laptop display on the same day.
Currently widely used in smart phone OLED screen, the future will be able to use inkjet printing technology to produce, just like printed newspapers, the red, green, blue light source of the light material, accurately printed on the OLED display, with such a process produced OLED panel, known as printed OLED.
Shares of TCL Technology (000100.SZ), the parent company of TCL Huaxing, edged up 0.24 percent to 4.13 yuan as of press time.
In the past, South Korean companies have advantages in large-size OLED, and now Chinese panel companies are catching up, BOE announced last week that IT will invest in the construction of 8.6 generation OLED panel production lines, and TCL Huaxing is also making efforts to print OLED, which makes large-size OLED panels, especially OLED IT screens, to upgrade the competition.
Li Yaqin, general manager of Sigmaintell, analyzed to the first financial reporter that compared with the evaporation process of traditional OLED panel production, the printed OLED process is simple and the material utilization rate is high, and the core is to solve the problem of equipment supply chain and mass production experience. The evaporation process has been relatively perfect at present, and has accumulated many years of mass production experience, but the application of the evaporation process in the production line of high-generation OLED panels is also facing the challenges of cost and yield.
Zhao Jun, senior vice president of TCL Technology and CEO of TCL Huaxing, said that in the field of large-size display, compared with traditional OLED screens, printed OLED screens have a longer life, clear text display and stable high color gamut. TCL Huaxing's printed OLED screen will be the first to be applied in the IT and medical fields, and it is expected that the products equipped with its printed OLED screen will go to the market and consumers in the second half of next year, accelerating the commercialization process.
Yan Xiaolin, CTO of TCL Technology and CTO of TCL Huaxing, said that the PPI (pixel density unit) of printed OLED exceeds WOLED (white light OLED) and QD-OLED (quantum dot OLED), and the color gamut and life are also better than the latter two. At present, TCL Huaxing has expanded the application of printed OLED to the field of notebook computers and tablet computers, and constantly improves the ecological chain construction of printed OLED.
He believes that the same is more than 8 generation OLED panel production line, there have been two companies (Samsung Display, BOE) announced investment construction, if the use of printed display technology to do, investment costs and material costs are expected to be optimized.
Thinner and more portable performance will enable OLED laptops to usher in high-speed growth. At present, the high generation OLED line has become the key strategic planning of the panel factory, Samsung Display (SDC) took the lead in laying out the 8.7 generation OLED IT screen production line, the planned monthly production capacity is 30,000 sheets, is expected to be mass production in 2026; Boe announced last week that IT will invest in the construction of 8.6 generation OLED IT screen production line, production capacity is 32,000 sheets per month, is expected to 2026-2027 mass production, in addition to LG Display (LGD) also has the corresponding high generation OLED panel production line planning.
In the medium and long term, with the planning of more than 8 generations of OLED IT screen production lines, OLED IT panel production capacity supply will increase by multiple levels. IT is expected that the capacity area supply of OLED IT screens in 2028 will be nearly 10 times that of 2022.
In recent years, Lenovo, Asus and other manufacturers actively introduce OLED screens into high-end laptops, and Apple has planned to fully switch to OLED screens for high-end laptops in the future. At the same time, with the decline in the price of OLED panels, the pricing of OLED laptops has sunk from 10,000 yuan to 4000-5000 yuan, and the penetration rate of mid-end products has increased.
Group Intelligence Consulting expects OLED notebook panel shipments to be 3.6 million in 2023, and market penetration to drop to 1.9%. With more than 8 generations of OLED IT screen production lines concentrated in 2026-2027 mass production, OLED laptop panel shipments will increase significantly, is expected in 2026 OLED laptop panel shipments will reach 16.9 million pieces, the penetration rate increased to 8%, 2027-2028 OLED laptop panel will usher in a high-speed growth period.
