Demand for Flexible Smartphone Displays Expected to Soar in 2017, Says IHS

Shipments of flexible displays for smartphones and other devices are expected to reach 139 million units in 2017, up 135 percent from 2016, said IHS Markit in a Monday report. But flexible displays are expected to account for only 3.8 percent of total display unit shipments in 2017, said IHS. Many manufacturers have plans to develop foldable, bendable or dual-edge curved smartphone designs, and Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 8 in 2017 using a flexible active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display, it said. Apple’s move into that sector “would dramatically drive up expected demand for flexible AMOLED panels,” enough for them to account for 20 percent of total OLED display unit shipments in 2017, said the researcher. “During 2016, many smartphone manufacturers have pressured display panel makers to supply them with more flexible AMOLEDs for their new smartphone designs.” Limited production capacity prevented all but “a few players” having their orders “met in quantity,” it said. Tight supply conditions are expected to ease in 2017 once Samsung Display and LG Display “start operating their new fabs to increase supply capacity for flexible displays, resulting in earlier availability of new smartphone entrants in the market,” IHS said.