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Display Equipment

Display Fab Utilization Bouncing Back After Brief Q2 Slowdown

July 20, 2020

Display industry fab utilization slowed in Q2 but less than expected, and is improving in Q3, according to the latest release of DSCC’s Quarterly All Display Fab Utilization Report, issued this week. In Q2 2020, total TFT input for all display makers was down 1% Q/Q and 2% Y/Y at 69.7 million square meters, but in the current Q3 2020 we expect total TFT input to increase 7% Q/Q and 7% Y/Y to 74.4 million square meters.
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Financial

What Can We Expect on Q2 Panel Maker Earnings?

July 20, 2020

This coming week starts the cycle of earnings results from flat panel display makers, with LGD typically starting off the releases and AUO scheduled next week. With panel prices falling in the first part of Q2 but then recovering in June, and the coronavirus raging, what can we expect from the earnings announcements?
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Mobile

DSCC’s UTG vs. CPI Foldable Smartphone Forecast

July 13, 2020

We were recently asked for our foldable UTG vs. CPI forecast by Bloomberg Korea so I put together the following chart. As indicated, while CPI led in 2018 and 2019, UTG is expected to lead from 2020. The gain by UTG is a result of Samsung adopting it in the Z Flip and the Z Fold 2 and we expect future Flip and Fold devices to continue using UTG. The Z Flip will be the highest volume foldable product in 2020 and we expect the Z Flip 2 and Z Fold 3 to compete for the best-selling product in 2021. Importantly, today, UTG capacity is constrained by Samsung Display’s glass processing (cutting/chemically treating) supplier Dowoo Insys. Samsung Display has made a big investment in Dowoo Insys and Dowoo Insys will be more than tripling capacity over the next 2 years. I will be sharing the unyielded and yielded UTG capacity outlook in my foldable talk at the SID/DSCC Business Conference. This data is important as it limits the upside to the foldable market given the #1 brand and panel supplier are constrained by the supply of this component.
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Events

The SID/DSCC Business Conference’s Smartphone and Foldable Sessions Will Be a Highlight of the Event

July 13, 2020

The SID/DSCC Business Conference Webinar, sponsored by Applied Materials, GE and OTI, becomes available on August 3rd will feature over 40 different talks on all aspects of the display industry. One of the major highlights will be talks related to smartphones and foldable displays. In addition to dedicated sessions on these topics, a number of other presentations will also cover market and technology developments and innovations in these segments.
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Events

Emerging Technologies Enabling TV, IT and Mobile Advances at the SID/DSCC Business Conference

July 7, 2020

Attendees of the SID/DSCC Business Conference during Display Week 2020 will not be able to see the speakers in person, but they will still get a comprehensive perspective on the emerging technologies that enable TV, IT and mobile advances as well as development of an entirely new display technology, microLEDs. The two sessions on emerging technologies will be held in the virtual conference during Display Week 2020 from August 3rd – 7th. The presentations will be available on demand from August 3rd onward.
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Mobile

DSCC Q2 Smartphone Display Cost Report Updates iPhone Panels

July 7, 2020

The Q2 update of DSCC’s Quarterly Smartphone Display Cost Report includes the latest updates to our smartphone cost model, and a number of new models representing the ongoing evolution of the smartphone marketplace. New panel sizes introduced this quarter include three new flexible OLED models representing phones from Huawei, Oppo, and Samsung, plus revisions for the resolution of Apple’s 2020 iPhone product line, and four 120Hz smartphone panel models.
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TV

TV Sales Recovering from COVID-19 Slowdown, per Discien Report

July 7, 2020

Shipments of TVs have improved from their pandemic-induced Q1 swoon, and are showing particular strength in North America and China, according to the latest update of the Discien Monthly Global TV Shipment Report, available to subscribers through DSCC. The report covers shipments of the top 15 global brands: Samsung, LGE, TCL, Hisense, Sony, Skyworth, TPV (Philips), Sharp, Xiaomi, Vizio, Haier, Panasonic, Changhong, Konka and Toshiba.
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Mobile

The US May Have Already Lost the 5G Battle

June 29, 2020

5G is of course critical for the telecom, semiconductor, display, IOT and broadcasting markets as well as a host of services. However, one report indicates the US may have already lost the 5G battle. After reading their paper, it appears the US has been forced to choose the more expensive 5G standard (mmWave at 24-300GHz) with reduced coverage due to excessive government ownership of the sub-6 GHz spectrum. One study indicated it would cost telecom providers over $400B to adequately build out the mmWave infrastructure, so it will be limited to dense cities only. Thus, there is the possibility that in the US the only reason to buy a 5G phone would be if you live in one of those dense cities or you frequently travel overseas to a country where 5G has been more effectively deployed. The report was authored by the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) which is one of several independent federal advisory committees advising the Secretary of Defense. I will try and summarize the major points of their 33 -page white paper entitled The 5G Ecosystem: Risks and Opportunities for DoD in this article. Note, the paper was published in April 2019, but I suspect little has changed since then.
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