A few days ago, Universal Display Corporation (UDC), a display company listed on NASDAQ, took the lead in developing light-emitting materials for organic LED (OLED) displays. The company predicts that this year’s revenue will increase significantly as the technology is more applied. increase.
CEO Steve Abramson (Steve Abramson) and his colleagues said last week that they expect sales in 2021 to reach between 530 million and 560 million U.S. dollars, an increase of 25-30% from the total in 2020.
As UDC’s licensing revenue doubled year-on-year, the company achieved record quarterly sales in the fourth quarter of 2020, reaching $75 million.
This surge pushed total revenue in the fourth quarter to US$142 million, an increase of 39% over the same period in 2019, and pre-tax income increased by 80% over the same period to reach US$66.7 million.
Sign long-term orders with Chinese factories to create large-scale development
2020 is a coexistence of success and challenges for UDC. Abramson specifically mentioned that they signed a new long-term agreement with China's second-largest display panel manufacturer, China Starlight Electronics, and established a new device-focused subsidiary OVJP. .
Abramson said on the investor conference call: "The OLED industry ecosystem will evolve with growth, new capacity, new products and new customers."
He also mentioned that many large companies, such as Samsung and HTC, hope to further promote the application of OLED.
According to him, LG Display is also expected to increase its OLED TV shipments from about 4.5 million units last year to as many as 8 million units this year. It seems that the consumer electronics industry is finally applying OLED screens to large-size displays.
Abramson observed: "A dozen OEMs such as LG Electronics, Sony, Vizio, and Skyworth are driving this huge growth." He also added that LG Display also hopes to enter the automotive OLED field.
Increase equipment investment to empower the OLED industry
Abramson said when announcing the establishment of the OVJP equipment business last year: "UDC was established with a mission to empower the OLED industry."
OVJP technology is the abbreviation of "Organic Vapor Jet Printing", which the company describes as a "groundbreaking" dry direct printing technology used to deposit organic materials to make 4K and 8K resolution OLED TVs.
The OVJP method was originally developed in Stephen Forrest's Princeton University laboratory, and it provides a more cost-effective way to deposit red, green, and blue organic emitters in a large-scale format suitable for television.
After establishing an OVJP equipment subsidiary last summer, UDC is busy expanding its business in the United States and is currently undergoing facility renovations in Ewing, New Jersey and California.
Abramson told investors: "We are increasing OVJP's efforts in Silicon Valley to expand our new manufacturing platform. The first milestone is the alpha system in 2022."
"We started with the concept of energy-saving, high-performance phosphorescent OLED light-emitting technology, and forged a path of discovery, development and delivery, and now we are constantly expanding the commercial UniversalPHOLED material portfolio. We are now dry printing OLED TVs in a vacuum environment. Concept to accelerate its commercialization."
About UDC Universal Display Corporation
UDC Universal Display is a global leader in the OLED industry. Universal Display went public in 1996 and signed a research contract with Princeton University.
Today, UDC cooperates with the world's largest consumer display panel manufacturer. From smart watches and tablets to smart phones and TVs, including Samsung’s Galaxy series and LG’s OLED TVs, our patented technology and materials can be seen in almost all commercial OLED products in the world. Our leading phosphorescence technology is also the key to OLED lighting.
