The liquid crystal industry center is transferred to China, and the global industrial display will reach 7.26 billion US dollars

As a key component of LCD panels, LED backlights have a market size that corresponds to the market size of LCD panel products. Each smart terminal equipped with LCD panels corresponds to an LED backlight product.

According to statistics from the authoritative organization IDC, the global smartphone market has stabilized at around 1.3-1.4 billion units in the past five years. The huge stock market of smartphones ensures the market size in the era of replacement. With the continuous improvement of economic conditions, the growth of emerging markets and the increase in the penetration rate of full-screen mobile phones, it will bring about the replacement of stock smartphones, providing a broad market space for small and medium-sized backlight display modules.

1. The mobile phone market LCD screen is still the mainstream

At present, liquid crystal panel display technology and OLED display technology have a competitive relationship in the field of smartphones. Therefore, when the overall mobile phone market size tends to be stable, the market size of LED backlights used in the field of smartphones is also determined by the two display technologies. market share.

At present, due to the complex process, low yield, high cost, and short service life of OLED display panels, OLED display panels can only partially replace the liquid crystal display panel market, and are mainly used in mid-to-high-end models of various mobile phone brands. The terminal application market is huge, and for a long time in the future, OLED display panels and liquid crystal display panels will coexist for a long time to jointly promote the prosperity and development of the market.

The cost of OLED display panels is high. The investment in AMOLED production lines is 4 to 5 times that of liquid crystal display panel production lines. The huge investment brings a large amount of depreciation to the OLED panel factory every year, resulting in a higher cost allocated to the product. Compared with liquid crystal display panels, the production process of AMOLED panels is complicated, and the number of processes is more than double that of liquid crystal display panels. There has always been a problem of low yield, resulting in high direct costs.

The above factors cause the cost of AMOLED screens to be significantly higher than that of LCD screens. Although the cost of AMOLED is declining, it is expected that the cost of AMOLED screens will continue to be significantly higher than that of LCD screens in the next few years.

In the global market for terminal products such as mobile phones, liquid crystal displays still maintain a mainstream position. According to Omdia data, AMOLED will account for 29.4% of the total smartphone display shipments in 2020, TPS TFT LCD will account for 37.6%, and a-Si TFT LCD will account for 29.4%. ratio of 33%.

It can be seen that LCD smartphone displays will account for more than 70% in 2020. In the current global mobile phone market, LCD displays still maintain a mainstream position. Computers and TVs are the main application areas of LED backlights for medium to large-sized LCD screens. At present, the penetration rate of OLED display technology is low.

The shipments of LED backlights correspond to the shipments of downstream terminal application products. The overall market has become saturated, and the market size is relatively stable. In terms of computer monitor shipments, according to Gartner data, the global PC shipments in 2018, 2019 and 2020 were 260 million units, 261 million units and 275 million units respectively.

In terms of TV shipments, according to HIS Markit data, OLED TV shipments in the fourth quarter of 2019 were 1.1 million units, and the total OLED TV sales in 2019 reached 3 million units, accounting for 1.3% of the total TV market. According to AVC Revo's "Global TV Brand Shipment Monthly Data Report", the global TV shipment in 2020 is 229 million units, of which OLED TV shipments are only 3.7 million units.

TFT-LCD occupies an absolute advantage in the display panel industry. According to different technology categories, LCD can be divided into TN-LCD, STN-LCD and TFT-LCD. Among them, TFT-LCD has the characteristics of mature technology, rich colors, good picture quality and low cost. It is widely used in smart phones, tablet computers, TVs, vehicle displays and other fields, and occupies an absolute advantage in the display panel industry.

According to IHS data, the global display panel shipments in 2018 were 3.827 billion pieces, a year-on-year increase of 3.43%, of which TFT-LCD shipments were 2.650 billion pieces, accounting for 69.24%. In 2019, the global TFT-LCD output value accounted for 73.77%, and it is expected that TFT-LCD output value will still occupy 65.25% of the market share in 2022.

2. Technology widens display panel terminal application scenarios

In recent years, the iterative upgrade of smart terminal products has been accelerating, promoting the diversified and high-end development of display panel application scenarios, and terminal products such as smart vehicle, smart medical, mobile office, distance learning, and VR/AR display equipment have emerged one after another.

The continuous development of technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and big data analysis has pushed the display panel industry to usher in a new round of development cycle. The demand for human-machine intelligent interaction in many fields such as automobiles, industrial control, education, and business office has greatly increased. In addition, the domestic 5G network layout and base station construction are being intensively carried out. Product landing.

As the interface between humans and machines, algorithms and data, the display panel continues to penetrate into high-end, specialization and other fields driven by the development of information technology, and its application scenarios will be further expanded. According to IHS Markit data, under the background that emerging technologies such as 5G promote the ubiquity of display scenarios and the application scope of display devices continues to expand, it is expected that global display panel shipments will continue to grow to 3.999 billion by 2022.

Among them, with the further increase in the demand for new energy vehicles, the vehicle display market will become an important pole to promote the development of the display panel market. According to the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" issued by the General Office of the State Council on November 2, 2020, it is expected that by 2025, the sales of new energy vehicles will reach about 20% of the total sales of new vehicles. By 2035, pure electric vehicles will become the mainstream of new sales vehicles.

The vehicle informatization and visualization degree of new energy vehicles is higher than that of traditional vehicles, and the demand for vehicle display panels has increased significantly. The emerging application scenarios of vehicle display panels include head-up display, vehicle entertainment system, panoramic rearview mirror display, etc. The rapid development of China will greatly promote the application of display panels in the field of smart cars.

3.  The global industrial display will reach 7.26 billion US dollars

In recent years, with the global popularity of mobile smart terminal products such as smartphones and tablet computers, and the popularization and use of various touch screen terminals such as vehicle electronic control systems and electronic query systems, the global touch screen products and technologies have developed rapidly, and the industry scale has continued to increase. .

According to the research data of IHS, the penetration rate of touch screen in mobile phone panels increased rapidly from 26% in 2009 to 65% in 2012, and reached 77% in 2013. With the further popularization and development of smart phones, touch screen is currently used in mobile phone panels. The penetration rate is close to 100%.

It can be said that basically every smartphone is equipped with a touch function. The market size of the touch screen corresponds to the market size of the terminal mobile phone. The shipments of terminal equipment such as in-vehicle displays and industrial control displays and the proportion of touch screen applications continue to increase. It also brings new impetus to the development of the touch screen market.

With the strong demand in professional display and other fields, the LCD market has ushered in new increments in automotive, industrial and other professional display fields, which has opened up new application markets for medium and large LCDs. The rapid development of the professional display market has brought new market growth for medium and large LCDs. quantity.

In the field of professional display, LCD has more performance advantages than OLED, and has become the mainstream application technology in the current professional display field.

With the vigorous development of 5G, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other technologies, the demand for intelligence and visualization in professional display fields such as automotive, industrial control, and medical care has increased significantly. The professional display field pays more attention to safety and stability. The sensitivity of OLED's main properties such as lightness and thinness, power saving, and flexible display is not high. The characteristics of LCD's long life, good environmental adaptability, and stable performance can better meet the needs of the professional display field.

In the field of in-vehicle display, as the concept of human-vehicle interaction such as intelligent driving, visual navigation and in-vehicle entertainment has become more and more popular in recent years, the trend of intelligence, informatization and sharing in the automotive industry is obvious, and the demand for in-vehicle display has increased significantly.

According to IHS Markit's estimates, the global vehicle TFT-LCD panel shipments will be about 250 million units in 2025, with a compound growth rate of about 5.82% from 2019 to 2025. On average, each vehicle is equipped with more than 2 TFT-LCD displays. The demand for backlight modules in the automotive field is 270 million to 320 million.

In the field of industrial display, with the introduction of the concept of Industry 4.0, industrial production intelligence, digitization, informatization and visualization have become a trend, and industrial automation application scenarios that are highly integrated with IT technology will become more diversified and universal. The main application of industrial control display In industrial automation, military, industrial handheld equipment and other fields.

According to the forecast of View Research, the compound annual growth rate of the global industrial display market will be 6% from 2017 to 2025, and by 2025, the global industrial display market will reach 7.26 billion US dollars. In addition to the growing demand for medium and large-sized products in the professional display field, under the influence of the epidemic, the trend of telecommuting and online education has increased, and the global demand for consumer electronics such as tablet computers and notebook computers is strong.

According to IDC data, in the fourth quarter of 2020, global tablet PC shipments were 52.200 million units, a year-on-year increase of 19.5%. For the full year of 2020, global tablet PC shipments were 164.1 million units, a year-on-year increase of 13.6%. Global PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2020 increased by 26.1% year-on-year to 91.600 million units.

In addition, the trend of consumer electronics products developing towards medium and large size has further boosted the demand for medium and large size LCD industry to remain at a high level. Driven by consumer demand, consumer electronic products such as tablet PCs show a trend of developing to medium and large sizes. According to IDC's analysis, China's tablet market is expected to ship 25.066 million units in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 5.1%.

It is expected that in 2021, the tablet computer screen will continue the trend of large-screen development. At present, the market share of the mainstream 10-inch (9-11-inch) tablet computer screen size will continue to expand, and the market share will be close to 80% in 2021. There will be more and more.

4. The global LCD industry center shifts to China

In recent years, the global LCD industry center has shown a clear trend of shifting to mainland China, and China's LCD industry has developed rapidly. Under the fierce market competition, panel companies represented by BOE, Huaxing Optoelectronics, Tianma, etc. have risen rapidly, and the panel production capacity of Japan and South Korea has gradually withdrawn.

In terms of revenue, the revenue of TFT-LCD panels in mainland China accounted for about 10% of the global revenue in 2013. In 2020, the revenue of mainstream TFT-LCD panel manufacturers in mainland China accounted for more than 40% of the global revenue; According to the data, in the fourth quarter of 2018, the proportion of LCD production capacity in mainland China accounted for 42% of the world, and the proportion increased to 52% in the first quarter of 2020.

Under the general trend of the global LCD panel industry center shifting to mainland China, domestic panel manufacturers are actively expanding production capacity to undertake more market business orders. Upstream display materials will benefit from the expansion of panel manufacturers and continue to expand capacity, backlight and other supporting facilities The market demand of the industry will rise significantly. The future development trend of the industry will further highlight the centralization and head effect.

On the one hand, the increase in centralization is conducted through the industrial chain. Due to the relatively concentrated market share of downstream manufacturers of flat panel displays, these customers are usually well-known domestic and foreign terminal equipment manufacturers such as Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Samsung, etc. Forming a cooperative relationship with such customers generally requires two complex processes of product certification and supplier certification, involving multiple links such as product quality, control system, and production management, and the certification cycle is long.

The above-mentioned customers generally do not easily increase or change the structure of their suppliers when the existing supply system works well. According to IDC data, the share of other manufacturers other than the top five mobile phone manufacturers in the global market has declined for three consecutive years, and the share is concentrated to the leading manufacturers, especially domestic manufacturers, and the continued concentration of terminal manufacturers will be through a stable supply structure. Upstream transmission of the industrial chain.

On the other hand, because a single batch of end products needs to be consistent in quality and specifications, there is a Matthew effect in the process of obtaining orders for panel manufacturers, that is, the leading manufacturers with high product quality and fast supply speed will be one-time Get larger orders.

Thinning glass can bring better display effect and user experience. With the development of information technology, consumers have increasingly higher requirements for product use experience and shape design. Consumers have increasingly strong demand for ultra-thin design of electronic products with "fashionable appearance, light weight and portability", and terminal products are moving towards light weight. , thin thickness, high screen ratio and other trends, the screen is getting thinner and lighter.

Thinning glass helps to enhance the market competitiveness of products. The weight and thickness of the thinned display panel are significantly reduced, the display quality is greatly improved, and it can provide clearer and brighter picture quality. Compared with the direct use of thin glass, the method of thinning the panel after production can help reduce costs and improve the yield of panel lamination.

The thickness of the traditional TFT-LCD single-layer glass substrate is generally 0.4-0.5mm, the two-layer substrate plus the liquid crystal filling in the middle, the thickness of the TFT-LCD after the box is about 1mm, and the overall thickness after thinning is only 0.4-0.6mm , the weight is reduced by more than 40%.

With the increasing demand of consumers for "light and thin" display panel products, display panel manufacturers adopt a thinning process with more obvious cost advantages to help enhance the market competitiveness of their products, and the demand for processes such as glass thinning will be further stimulated.