[Blue Technology Summary] The dispute between China and South Korea's panel industry is extending from LCD to OLED. A set of data that seems to have no direct relationship with Samsung, but has a deep meaning. In October, Apple's mobile phone sales in the Chinese market hit a new

[Blue Technology Summary] The dispute between China and South Korea's panel industry is extending from LCD to OLED.

A set of data that seems to have no direct relationship with Samsung, but has a deep meaning.

In October, Apple phone sales in the Chinese market hit a new high since November 2014, up 882% month-on-month and 83% compared with the same period last year.

JPMorgan Chase also pointed out that in October, Apple's smartphone shipments in China saw a strong rebound, which may mean that the new iPhone 13 phones will have a good product cycle performance in the Chinese market.

Apple phones perform well, and the direct stakeholder is Samsung. The largest screen supplier for Apple phones is Samsung. The cheap iPhone uses an LCD screen, while the iPhone Plus uses an OLED screen. Due to the limited production of Samsung screens, Apple began to look for other partners, one is Samsung's old rival LG, and the other is BOE.

If Apple reduces its screen purchases on Samsung, it will undoubtedly be equivalent to curbing an important profit channel for Samsung.

Samsung, who is prepared, obviously won't miss such an opportunity. On January 22, Samsung Semiconductor and Display officially announced that Samsung Display will open a global OLED website recently. Consumers can learn about OLED-related technologies, trends, multimedia and news through the website, and learn about Samsung's differentiated products and technical advantages.

Samsung's goal is obvious to build Samsung Display OLED global website into a communication center for users around the world.

Looking at the development trends and prospects of Samsung OLED, we cannot just focus on Samsung itself, but we must be more objective from the perspective of the global industrial chain. When Samsung gave up LCD and stepped up its efforts to tilt towards OLED, perhaps this is the business opportunity in their eyes.

, Samsung's biggest rival, BOE, is not only the world's largest LCD panel manufacturer, but also launches industry-leading innovative products such as flexible full screen, folding screen, and sliding roll screen. This shows that BOE is also accelerating on the OLED track.

Samsung de-LCD acceleration to OLED

In August last year, Samsung began selling the 8.5-generation LCD production line in Suzhou. The deal was ultimately signed with Huaxing Optoelectronics to sell the remaining shares in the Suzhou LCD production line for US$1.08 billion. This transaction involves the core technology of 8.5 generation LCD, and requires approval from relevant Korean departments until early February this year, it was approved by the Ministry of Trade and Resources of South Korea.

In August 2020, LG also announced that it will fully turn to OLED panels, and LCD panels will gradually withdraw from production sequences. And this does not mean that their phones will not use LCD screens, but will instead turn to purchasing from suppliers in China.

Is it because LCD technology lags behind? Have we taken over the production capacity eliminated by others? If this is the case, it is obviously too superficial.

As a new generation of display technology, OLED screens do have many advantages that LED screens are difficult to achieve. The higher luminous efficiency makes the brightness, contrast and viewing angle of the OLED screen significantly better than that of the LCD screen. The low-energy consumption characteristics can also help improve the battery life of the mobile phone. The thickness of the OLED screen can reach 1/3 of the LCD screen, which can help manufacturers design thinner smartphones. These advantages of

are understandable, but OLED also has obvious flaws. OLED is an organic material that aging speed is faster than LCD. Moreover, since each pixel of OLED is self-luminous, the working time of each pixel of OLED is different. If one pixel is used for too long, it will become lighter than other colors. This is commonly known as "burning screen". When

displays the same page for a long time, it is easy to cause screen burning. For mobile phone screens, the screen changes relatively quickly, and this is not easy to occur. But for TV screens, this situation is relatively easy to occur.

Starting from July this year, LCD panels began to plummet, especially the prices of large-size LCDs still maintained a rapid decline. Mainly because of the high previous panel prices and international shipping prices, some overseas stocking demand has shifted to the first half of the year, resulting in a continued sluggish overseas demand in the second half of the year and the profits of panel manufacturers have declined. This is also the reason why Samsung and LG withdraw from LCD panel manufacturing.

At that time, Huaxing and BOE were still making big moves into the LCD market. Isn’t it very unwise? Actually not.

LCD industry Huaxing BOE has been catching up with

In 2003, BOE announced the acquisition of the TFT-LCD business of South Korea Hyundai (HYDIS) for US$380 million, winning its three complete production lines and a large number of patented technologies, and becoming the ninth largest LCD panel manufacturer in the world. In June of the same year, BOE invested US$1.25 billion in Beijing Economic Development Zone to build a new fifth-generation line. In August, it spent HK$1.05 billion to acquire approximately 26.36% of Hong Kong Guanjie Technology's shares, gaining control of this world's second-ranked display supplier. The series of operations of

have allowed BOE to get tickets to the LCD display market, but with tickets, it may not be possible to make the market well.

BOE is continuing to develop newer LCD products. At the 2019 International New Display Technology Exhibition, BOE launched a new BD Cell TFT-LCD display, and showed the BD CELL display with better contrast compared to OLED displays.

BD Cell display uses a two-layer Cell design in black and white and color, pixel partitioning technology, and micron ultra-fine light control technology, making the contrast reach one million levels, dark tones more profound, low grayscale picture details more abundant, and power consumption can be 40% lower than OLED displays of the same size.

At the same time, BOE launched a glass-based 8K Mini LED TV in May, with a peak brightness of up to 2,000 nits and a contrast ratio of up to 1000,000:1. BOE has not given up OLED research and development and has launched high-resolution flexible bendable AMOLED display technology, with thinner module thickness and smaller curling radius, and can also achieve a crease-free screen display effect. It is equipped with a comprehensive flexible screen technology with an under-screen camera, which is the first to achieve the industry-leading high resolution of 400PPI.

technologies allow BOE to cooperate with Huawei and Apple to become the world's largest LCD panel supplier. Due to the scale effect, BOE has also pushed Samsung and LG to exit from LCD screens. However, after forcing the two major opponents to retreat, BOE also ushered in a new competitor - Huaxing.

Huaxing relies on TCL and has the technical support of LCD. Last year, the flagship tablet TAB-S7 released by Samsung used the LTPS LCD flat panel display technology, which not only ensures image quality, but also effectively reduces harmful blue light. Huaxing also won the 2020 Q3 "Galaxy Quality Best Award" awarded by Samsung.

has technology and the production line purchased from Samsung, Huaxing quickly achieved economies of scale. In February 2020, TCL Huaxing surpassed BOE to become the world's largest LCD panel manufacturer with its 18.8%. As Korean manufacturers bid farewell to the LCD panel market, TCL Huaxing Optoelectronics' market share will further increase.

In the near future, as the cost of AMOLED gradually decreases, Samsung is also very likely to fully use AMOLED in all product lines, thereby replacing LCDs. This sign may further accelerate the layout of AMOLED by Chinese companies.

Chinese companies may surpass but will not replace Samsung

As the global leader in screen technology, Samsung's position is based on more forward-looking insight into the industry and leading in core technologies. The persistence in high-end technology is similar to that of Japanese craftsmanship. If you make a product, whether it is a screen or a semiconductor, you must do your best. Samsung's market philosophy is better than Japanese companies, which is the key to its ability to defeat Japanese semiconductor and panel companies.

In LCD technology, Samsung adopts the attitude of an industry leader. Chinese companies adopt the attitude of being proactive and follower. Huaxing Optoelectronics has been established for more than ten years and is a young enterprise that requires technology and brand accumulation. Although LCD panels are not the latest technology, they are still the world of LCD panels worldwide.

The actual supply area of ​​global LCD TV panels will increase by 6% year-on-year in 2021. At the same time, the dual effects of "home economy" and fiscal stimulus in overseas markets continue, and terminal retail performance in Europe and the United States continues to be strong. The application markets such as remote office, online services, and home entertainment have further expanded, and the demand for IT and TV products has continued to grow, and the demand for LCD panels will continue to expand.

This gives a group of companies such as BOE and Huaxing Optoelectronics a greater market space.In addition, China has deployed the industrial chain globally and has a larger user base, which has laid a good foundation for the acceleration of product iteration.

is still dominated by LCD and OLED in the panel industry. Both have their own advantages, but they will still coexist for a long time. The clear trend is that South Korea has abandoned LCD and focused on OLED. At least in this field, South Korea may be the leader for the time being.

In the field of screen manufacturing, local companies' manufacturing capabilities are not much different from world-class level. In the next few years, it may surpass Samsung in partially but cannot replace Samsung.

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