DisplaySearch Blogger Sees Flexible Displays Growing Ninefold in 2015

As production of smartphones and smart watches that use flexible displays ramps up, the market for flexible displays is forecast to increase almost ninefold next year over 2014, said Charles Annis, DisplaySearch vice president-manufacturing research, Monday in a blog post. "This nearly exponential advance is being enabled by rapid flexible manufacturing capacity growth as both LG Display and Samsung increase capacity on current lines and Samsung begins production at its new flexible-dedicated A3 line." Since late 2013, "a variety of displays fabricated on plastic substrates have come to market" that are "very thin, light, and rugged," and also "enable device design freedom with curved features," he said. "Regardless of the remaining challenges and unknowns about how fast and how far the market will grow in the long run, our outlook remains optimistic." From a "simple applications perspective," any current rigid flat-panel display "could be replaced by thin, light, unbreakable, and even low-cost flexible alternatives," he said. "Also, flexibility may create new applications, some of which we may not have even imagined yet."