Taiwan ranks as world's no. 1 OLED-shipping nation

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on April 28, 2006. It reports that global shipments of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels are expected to reach 83 million units in 2006, an increase of more than 30 percent from the figure of 63 million in 2005.

According to DisplaySearch, the flat panel display (FPD) market research and consulting firm, in the fourth quarter of 2005, Taiwan ranked as the world's largest supply base of the OLED panels. Currently, the mainstream OLED products are passive-type models. Taiwan's major OLED suppliers include RiTdisplay Corp. and Univision Tech Inc.

According to DisplaySearch, several large-sized thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel suppliers have joined active-type OLED production. These include AU Optronics Corp. (AUO); Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp. (CMO); Samsung; LG Philips LCD Co., Ltd. (LPL); and Toppoly Optoelectronics Inc. (formerly Tonpal Optoelectronics Inc.). Indeed, active-type OLED panels are expected to become the market mainstay in 2007, replacing passive-type counterparts.

According to DisplaySearch, in 2005, the global OLED production value reached US$530 million. MP3 players continued as the largest application market, accounting for 29 million OLED panels, or production value of US$170 million. Currently, MP3 player panels account for 45 percent of total OLED shipments, while cellphone sub-panels account for 47 percent.

In 2005, RiTdisplay was the largest OLED supplier, with a global share of 25.9 percent. It was followed by Samsung SDI (25.8 percent), Univision (13.3 percent), Pioneer (11.7 percent), and TDK (6.2 percent).

In the fourth quarter of 2005, Taiwan's companies accounted for 41.7 percent of the global OLED supply, surpassing South Korea's 34.7 percent and Japan's 22.1 percent. This made Taiwan the largest OLED production nation.

According to DisplaySearch, in 2006, several companies are expected to start active-type OLED production. These include Sasmsung SDI, Samsung Electronics, LPL, Seiko Epson, Hitachi, RiTdisplay, Toppoly, AUO and CMO.

According to DisplaySearch, the increasingly mature active-type OLED sector means that OLEDs have begun to be used in cell phones and small-sized portable multimedia players.