AMOLED brings Samsung back to the No. 1 of phone displays

According to IHS Markit, Samsung once again took 1st place in the third-quarter smartphone screen market in the third quarter, with the company taking advantage of record demand for AMOLEDs.

Samsung rose from 21.3% in Q2 to 29% in Q3, according to IHS. This was enough to launch Samsung’s past BOE Display to take the lead on the market for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2018.

“All major smartphone brands – including Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi – have embraced AMOLED technology in their flagship models in 2019,” says IHS’s David Hsieh.

AMOLED smartphone shipments totaled 146 million units in the third quarter, up from 93 million in the second quarter, the record quarter of highest value for display technology. In comparison, a-Si TFT LCD shipments totaled 177 million.

Meanwhile, LTPS TFT LCD delivery for smartphones was 144 million. This is the first time that quarterly AMOLED shipments have outpaced LTPS TFT LCD shipments in the smartphone market.

“As more and more smartphone brands are embracing AMOLEDs for their premium and even mid-range models, the market is expected to continue to grow,” said Hsieh, “this opens the door for upcoming Chinese AMOLED suppliers like BOE , Visionox, ChinaStar, Tianma and EverDislpay to make a profit in the market. ”

However, these companies may have difficulty coping with critical manufacturing technologies that support form factors that are challenging to produce, including a 3.5D edge-curved cover, touch-thin-film capsule, chip on polyimide (COP) drive IC binding, contrast OLED modules and brightness adjustment and compensation.

BOE’s share of the smartphone display market declined to 19.6% in Q3, down 23.8% in Q2. In 3rd place, Tianma had a 12.5 percent stake, slightly higher than 12.3 percent in the second quarter.