Production costs and sophisticated technologies have barred the entry of manufacturers into the OLED industry, but increasing demand and technology updates are creating new opportunities since the industry’s inception in the year 2000.
The market used to consist of a few players, but now there is a huge market looking for flexible displays, low power consumption, high brightness, low operating temperature and brightness—all of these features offered by OLED and considered attractive in mobile phone, MP3 player, automobile display, PC notebook and TV applications, among others.
TVs in particular will be a major stimulus for OLED production in the years to come. Automobile lighting and displays are two other application hotspots.
At present, less than 10 OLED makers in the country are in OLED mass production, and over half of them are foreign-invested. Local and foreign investments are coming in, however, together with financial and policy support from central and local governments on the mainland.
Established OLED manufacturers are also expanding production to meet additional foreign and domestic requirements. One of these companies,
Smartdisplays (Xi’an) Co., Ltd, went into OLED mass production in 2006 with an annual capacity of 200,000 units. Orders may have upped production by as much as 50% in 2007.
Beijing Visionox Technology Co.,Ltd, another major OLED manufacturer, has just completed a new production base in Kunshan in Jiangsu Province costing somewhere in the range of RMB 400 to 500 million (US$ 53-66 million). The new 30,000 sqm factory was scheduled to start operations by the end of 2007.
