In recent years, driven by international giants such as Samsung and Apple, OLED display technology has been favored by the market with its advantages of self-illumination, high contrast, brighter colors and flexibility, making rapid progress in consumer electronics such as smart phones and smart wearables. At present, IN the field of small size, OLED has become the new mainstream display technology, occupying more than half of the smartphone market, and almost occupying the smart wear market.
Nowadays flexible screen is becoming a big trend in the development of smart phone display. The penetration rate of AMOLED panels for smartphones in China reached 51% in the first half of 2021 for the first time, up 10% from 2020, according to CINNO Research's Mobile phone sales monitoring data in China.
Statistics from UBI Research, another market Research firm, show that in the first half of this year alone, 122 OLED smartphones were released in the market. Most high-end flagship models have flexible AMOLED screens and all cost more than 2,000 yuan.
Tianma Xiamen 6 generation flexible AMOLED will soon be put into production
2016 can be said to be the first year of the development of China's OLED industry. In that year, domestic panel manufacturers aggressively built 6 generation flexible AMOLED panel factories, including Tianma and other panel giants, to achieve a new breakthrough in China's display industry.
Tianma started to enter the flexible AMOLED market in earnest in 2018. Prior to this, Tianma invested and built an OLED pilot production line in Shanghai. After years of r&d and investment, tianma has accumulated a good accumulation of technology, process, talents and customers. In 2018, Tianma invested an additional 14.5 billion yuan to upgrade the hard screen OLED production line in Wuhan to the 6 generation flexible AMOLED production line (TM17), successfully occupying the high point of flexible display, and now this production line has achieved mass production. At the beginning of 2020, Tianma made another effort, spending 48 billion yuan to build another 6 generation AMOLED panel production line in Xiamen, processing 48,000 flexible display substrates per month.
At the moment of the epidemic, Tianma has never stopped moving forward. Now, after two years of active investment and construction, the 6th generation flexible AMOLED production line project of Xiamen Tianma Display Technology Co., Ltd. located in Xiamen Torch High-tech Zone is busy with moving large quantities of equipment, which is a very busy scene. Moving the equipment means that the production line will soon be in mass production, which opens a new milestone of Tianma OLED industry. At the same time, it has positive significance for Tianma and the local display industry in Xiamen, as well as the national display industry.
It is reported that this project of Tianma Xiamen is the largest single flexible AMOLED single factory in China and the most advanced single flexible AMOLED single factory in the world. It is also the largest single high-tech manufacturing project invested in Xiamen's history. After completion, tianma is expected to rank among the world's top three flexible AMOLED production capacity.
Tianma AMOLED products to achieve the overall shipment of ten million pieces
Tianma, including Xiamen Tianma Display Technology, has three AMOLED production lines with continuous and rapid improvement in production capacity, and the yield rate of flexible OLED products is above the industry average. At present, Tianma Shanghai TM15 mainly produces smart wearable products such as watches and wristbands. At present, this production line is also responsible for the company's new AMOLED products and new technology test and research and development. Tianma Wuhan TM17 is currently based on smart phone products. Both of these production lines have already achieved mass production and shipped to mainstream brand customers in the market.
Excellent performance this year. In terms of revenue, according to the report of the third quarter of 2021, Shenzhen Tianma A(000050.SZ) achieved 23.962 billion yuan of operating revenue in the first three quarters, with A year-on-year growth of 5.64%, and 1.41 billion yuan of net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies, with A year-on-year growth of 14.58%.
In terms of shipments, In the first half of this year, Tianma shipped tens of millions of AMOLED products. Among them, AMOLED smart wearable shipments grew significantly, with sales revenue increasing by more than seven times year on year. Tianma has become the main supplier of major brands in the wearable market, and it is expected that tianma will continue to grow in the future. In terms of mobile phones with flexible screens, Tianma has also performed well. Its mass production projects and projects under development have achieved full coverage of domestic brand customers, and new project orders are still being introduced.
Tianma is bullish on the OLED market and expects demand to continue to grow. "Now that AMOLED flexible products have been delivered in batches and recognized by brand customers, the company will continue to strengthen its comprehensive competitiveness, seize market opportunities, and deepen strategic cooperation with terminal manufacturers. We are confident that we can do better in the future competition." Tianma said in a recent survey.
The real battle for OLED is just beginning
Although OLED technology has developed for many years and is gradually improving now, there are still bottlenecks and industrial support is not yet perfect. In the view of Li Shutang, a materials scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, OLED technology has made rapid progress in recent years, but there are still many major scientific problems to be solved, and these problems determine and restrict the practical application of OLED display products. That's one of the main reasons OLED devices remain expensive.
However, for the latecomer Chinese manufacturers, this is both a challenge and an opportunity.
After all, South Korea's Samsung and LG are the pioneers of this technology, with almost all the key technologies and well-established supply systems, and it will not be easy to overtake them. China got off to a relatively late start on the OLED circuit, but the good news is that it's getting off to a fast start and could overtake.
Currently, flexible AMOLED display products are evolving into bending, folding, even crimping and other forms of products, and there is still a large application space in the small and medium size field. For example, the "flexible" feature provides the OLED industry with many opportunities for sustainable innovation. How to reduce the folding cost is a problem if the screen needs to be folded. To make the screen curly, it is necessary to make the built-in battery and other components curly at the same time, which will affect the life of the curly screen. This will be a problem that the upstream and downstream enterprises of the industrial chain need to think about...
For now, flexible screens are mainly used in consumer electronics such as smartphones, smartwatches and smart TVS (which roll up), but also in other areas such as foldable laptops, high-end cars and more wearable devices.
In addition, with the development of 5G technology, the Internet of Things and the era of artificial intelligence, display has become a key window for human-computer information interaction. As an important carrier, flexible AMOLED still has great market demand potential. On the other hand, the real battle in the OLED industry may be just beginning for Tianma and other domestic manufacturers.
In different periods, different requirements have been put forward for the performance, appearance, size and application of products. The development of The Times, full of opportunities everywhere, to see how manufacturers to grasp, how to go ahead of schedule layout. At present, Tianma AMOLED has achieved advance layout and successfully won the smart wear market. As Xiamen Tianma Project is put into production, tianma may target more application fields such as intelligent vehicle, ultrabook and high-end tablet in the next step. It will not be long before tianma reaches the goal of "top three in the world". Let's wait and see.
