Chinese Makers Shipped More Than 1 Million AMOLED Smartphone Panels in Q3

Chinese panel makers shipped more than a million active-matrix OLED smartphone displays for the first time in Q3, IHS Markit said in a Thursday report. Though Chinese makers account for less than 2 percent of the global AMOLED smartphone panel supply in terms of shipments, surpassing the million-unit mark in a single quarter “shows significant improvements in their manufacturing technology,” IHS said. Total shipments of AMOLED displays for smartphones set a record of 101 million units in Q3, it said. Samsung Display continued to hold the dominant share by far with 99.7 million units shipped, it said. But three Chinese panel makers -- EverDisplay Optronics, Tianma Micro-electronics and Govisionox Optoelectronics -- collectively shipped 1.4 million units for Q3, a significant increase sequentially from the 590,000 units they shipped in Q2, IHS said. Many Chinese smartphone makers are planning to adopt AMOLED panels in their devices, it said. “This gives Chinese display suppliers a great opportunity to gain more orders, improve their mass production yield rate and enhance their product reliability.” It’s forecasting AMOLED display penetration among Chinese smartphone brands will increase from 8 percent in 2015 to 13.6 percent in 2016. “However, due to the tight supply of AMOLED panels from Samsung Display, many domestic smartphone brands are turning to local Chinese panel makers,” it said. “Chinese panel makers are still too small to threaten Samsung’s dominant position, but they still play an important role as a second or third source for major smartphone brands in China,” IHS said. Moreover, as Samsung Display shifts its focus to flexible OLEDs, Chinese panel makers “are expected to expand their shares in the rigid OLED panel market,” it said.