Blog

LG Chemical Expected to Rank Second in OLED Evaporation Materials Market

July 29, 2024

LG Chemical is anticipated to surpass DuPont to become the number two player in the OLED evaporation materials market. According to DSCC’s Bi-Annual AMOLED Materials Report, UDC led the evaporation materials market in 2023, followed by DuPont in second place and LG Chemical in third. However, starting in 2024, LG Chemical is expected to rise to the number two position and maintain this position continuously.
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Prime Day Deals Disappointing for TV Buyers

July 22, 2024

Amazon has touted its Prime Day as a major shopping event, and the company declared its two-day event as a major success. For TV buyers looking for deals, however, with a few exceptions the special deals offered were not so special. The pricing of the deals gives some hints about the state of the TV market in the US.
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Meta to Launch AR Smart Glasses Without Ray-Ban Branding

July 22, 2024

Meta has asked its Reality Labs hardware teams to cut spending by almost 20% through 2026, according to The Information. Meta’s CFO reportedly told Reality Labs employees that AR/VR should be targeted as a $1T opportunity given how much the company has invested.
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Mobile

Samsung Launches Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 – Modest Updates, Higher Prices

July 11, 2024

Samsung launched the sixth generation of its Flip and Fold foldable smartphones this week in Paris, France. The new foldables feature some small but needed improvements, incorporate AI functionality and are priced $100 higher than the Flip 5 and Fold 5 devices. However, if you order them on Samsung’s website, they will double the storage which wipes out the price increase. The Flip 6 will surely be the best selling foldable in 2024 and the Fold 6 will likely be vying with the Huawei Mate 5 for the #2 best-selling model. The specifications for the Fold 5, Flip 5, Fold 6 and Flip 6 are shown below. Let’s start with the displays.
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TV

LCD TV Panel Prices Starting to Decline in Q3

July 1, 2024

The rally in LCD TV panel prices which started in February peaked in May and June and panel prices are headed down as we start the third quarter. While the rally was far from dramatic, it represented a respite for TV panel makers who are challenged for profitability. Unlike many former transitions, we do not expect a rapid deterioration in panel prices but rather a soft decline, at least in Q3’24. This Q3 slump follows a short rally in Q1’24-Q2’24 which followed a short slump in Q4’24, and together these “mini-cycles” represent a period of unusual stability in panel prices, where they have been sustained within a narrow range.
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OLED

Apple’s OLED iPad Pro’s Undergo a Mix Shift

June 24, 2024

We continue to track Apple’s OLED iPad Pro panel procurement on a monthly basis through our supply chain contacts. Looking at the data, we were initially surprised when production started in February and March that the allocation between 11.1” and 13” heavily favored 13” with at least a 70% share. Our understanding for this was that SDC may have had some technical challenges managing crosstalk/light leakage in the tandem stack and SDC was the dominant 11.1” supplier. Looking at April and May, we saw that the gap closed quite a bit between 13” and 11.1” with 11.1” reaching nearly a 40% share in April and nearly a 50% share in May. It appears that SDC may have solved their technical challenges and, at the same time, LGD was added as a second supplier and started shipping higher volumes. Apple’s OLED iPad Pro Panel Procurement Mix
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Samsung Display Acquires Some of Orthogonal’s Patents for Undisclosed Sum, How It Differs with eLEAP and ViP

June 24, 2024

The Elec reported that Samsung Display has acquired five of US start-up Orthogonal’s patents, shown below, for FMM-less OLED manufacturing. The approach Orthogonal took is different than the approach that Japan Display, Visionox and Applied Materials have taken. The key difference is how the OLED material is protected once it is deposited and when the second half of the OLED stack is deposited.
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Ledger Starts Shipping First Product with Curved OTFT E Ink Display

June 10, 2024

After a two-year delay, Ledger is finally shipping Stax, a hardware wallet for cryptocurrencies. Stax was developed in collaboration with Tony Fadell, who famously designed the Apple iPod. The device is about the same size as a small wallet and features a curved E Ink display with an organic TFT backplane.
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