November 2025 Panel Pricing: TV Leads Decline
November panel pricing was particularly telling in that panel prices on a general basis were down 1.5%, with much of that pricing pressure coming from TV panel prices which declined by 2.9%, the largest decline since July and at the high end of our expectations, while IT panel prices (Monitors, Notebooks, Tablets) declined by 0.2%. We expected TV panel prices to decline in November as TV set brands push for lower prices as they struggle to remain profitable, however there seems to be resistance building among panel producers, as indicated by our forecast for flat to down 0.9% for the month of December.  We expect this is part of a panel producer plan to try to raise TV panel prices in 1Q, one which we expect will be difficult to accomplish.  TV set brands are still facing tariffs and higher component costs under which their margins have been reduced.  1Q is typically a relatively flat (↑0.4%) quarter in terms of aggregate pricing as demand is typically at a low for the year, so we expect considerable resistance from TV set brands to any attempt at TV panel price increases early in 2026.  December is typically down ~1.6% m/m (5-year average).
Conclusion
The core takeaway for investors in the display panel industry heading into 2026 is the imminent risk of conflict over TV panel pricing, which dominates the overall market.

• TV Panel Conflict Ahead: Panel producers, facing persistent panel price declines, plan to resist further price drops in December and attempt a price increase in Q1 2026. However, TV set brands, already struggling with profitability due to tariffs and high component costs, will strongly resist any increase, especially during the seasonally weak Q1.
• Investment Implication: This dynamic suggests price stability is more likely than a significant price rally in TV panels in early 2026. Investors should be cautious about panel producers' ability to execute a price increase and monitor their capacity utilization rates as a key indicator of pricing discipline.
• IT Panel Stability: The IT segment (Notebooks, Monitors, Tablets) shows minor price drops and is forecasted to remain relatively stable.
• Investment Implication: Panel Producers heavily focused on the IT panel segment may offer more predictable, though lower, returns than those dominated by the volatile TV market.

We expect pricing tension in the TV panel sector in Q1 2026. Investment decisions should prioritize panel producers that demonstrate cost control, strategic capacity management, and minimal reliance on the challenged TV panel profit recovery.
​

​Total Black Friday 2025 GMV: $21.4 Billion
Black Friday is still the biggest shopping holiday in the US if expectations for today’s Cyber Monday are realized.  Expectations for Cyber Monday are for $14.2 billion in GMV, ~20% higher than the $11.8 billion spent online during 2025 Black Friday, however if in-store sales are added (~$9.6 billion), the total for Black Friday this year is ~21.4 billion GMV[1], which is up ~7.0% y/y, with on-line up 9.3% and in-store up 4.3%, stronger results than we might have expected.
Consumer Electronics: 40% Share of Black Friday GMV
Consumer electronics was the largest single product category online by both volume and value, accounting for 54% of total items sold, as it is the category with the highest ASP, while also the most heavily discounted category.  On a dollar value basis (combined in-store and online) we estimate that the electronics category has a ~40% share of the total Black Friday GMV. 
Laptops & TVs: The Deep Discount Battle
As reported by a variety of sources[2] the products with this year’s biggest discounts are laptops and TVs, While heavy discounting on laptops strike us as being a bit surprising considering rather aggressive stocking of late, TV discounting was a given as weak sales in the back half of this year indicated a need to provide some incentives to move buyers to open their wallets.
Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart Black Friday 2025 Performance Breakdown

• AMAZON (AMZN)
  • ~$3.4b (All categories)
  • Top Sellers (Electronics) – Laptops, Smart Home devices, Headphones, Monitors, Gaming Consoles, Phones
    • Apple (AAPL) Air Pods ↓0.23% y/y
    • Samsung (005930.KS) Galaxy Phones ↑1.09%
  • Margins - ↑0.5% to 0.7% y/y on improved efficiency
• BEST BUY (BBY)
  • ~$2.8 - $3 billion (Electronics) across weekend
  • Most in-store demos – Meta (FB) Ray-Bans, Microsoft (MSFT) Co-pilot PC
  • Margins - ↑~2% on shift to premium products and services (Install/service contracts)
• WAL-MART (WMT)
  • Most Popular
    • TV (Samsung, TCL (000100.CH)
    • Phones – Apple, Samsung
    • Gaming – XBOX (Nintendo – 7974.JP), PlayStation (SNE)
  • Price leader in entry level – 40% - 60% discounts
  • Margins (Electronics) – 11% to 13% ↑0.2% - 0.3%
  • Margins on Doorbusters – Flat y/y

The e-commerce side grew faster than in-store and is almost doubled 2020 levels, and 54% of online purchases were made on mobile devices but deeper discounts than last year were the trend in the CE space, in order to attract higher volumes.  Retailers continue to spread out the Black Friday experience, with BF sales starting a week or more before Friday and extending through Saturday and Sunday and into Cyber Monday, with full holiday expectations expected to be up 4% to 5% (all goods) y/y.
Again, these are preliminary numbers, especially margin data, but out assessment is that Black Friday results for the CE space were slightly better than expected.  While we were concerned that consumers might have pre-bought a number of items earlier in the year in anticipation of the volatility in tariffs, it seems that was not the case, at least on Black Friday.  There is still the rest of the month in terms of shipments and sell-through, but at least the Christmas holiday period started off reasonably well based on this early data.


[1] Adobe Analytics (On-line) and Mastercard Spend (In-store)

[2] CBS News, Consumer Reports, Queue-it, Mashable, Podbase.

China Smartphone Sales: September 2025 Data
China’s official accounting for smartphone shipments has indicated that September saw shipments up 23.6% m/m and up 10.1% q/q, 12.4% above the 5 year average for the month, with shipments of domestic brands 84.7% of the total.  The 3rd quarter saw shipments of 78.63 million units, up 10.2% q/q and up 0.7% on a cumulative y/y basis.  3Q was 12.0% above the 3rd quarter 5 year average. 
The data indicated that while the month was strong on a m/m basis, the quarter was inline with last year, maintaining the modest two-year recovery in Chinese smartphone shipments but with little or no y/y growth.  We note that expectations for CE products in general for October and November are relatively low as the Chinese ‘New for Old’ consumer product summaries winds down for the year.  Expectations for 2026 are also conservative at this point, given that it is unknown whether CE subsidies will return next year and if not, how much 2026 buying power has already been used up in taking advantage of the 2025 subsidies.
Conclusion
In summary, China’s smartphone shipment data for September and Q3 2025 reveals a solid month-on-month rebound, with volumes well above medium-term historical averages. However, on a year-over-year and cumulative quarterly basis, the market remains essentially flat, reflecting a stabilization phase after two years of modest recovery. With domestic brands comprising almost 85% of shipments, national preference and competitive pricing continue to shape the market landscape. Looking ahead, market sentiment for upcoming months is cautious due to the winding down of the “New for Old” program, and projections for 2026 hinge on potential government intervention and subsidy renewal.

The History of JOLED and the Chinastar Acquisition
JOLED (Bankrupt) was formed in 2015 as the combination of the OLED R&D divisions of Sony (SNE) and Panasonic (6752.JP), with funding from Japan’s INCJ (Innovation Network Corporation of Japan), a quasi-government organization that funds technology projects that are considered vital to Japan.  The company’s technology was based on ink-jet printing and produced its first IJP displays in 2018 using a pilot production line.  In 2018 the company began construction of what was the first commercial ink-jet printing line in Ishikawa, Japan and raised an additional $400 million from DENSO (6902.JP), Toyota (7203.JP), Tsusho (8015.JP), and Sumitomo (4005.JP) to fund the project.  While completing the line and beginning production JOLED was never able to scale to profitability and called on Chinastar (pvt) (China Star Optoelectronics Technology) and parent TCL (000100.CH) for an additional round of financing in 2020 (10% stake).
While JOLED continued to produce relatively small quantities of ink-jet based monitors, the COVID pandemic proved to difficult for the company to navigate and in March of 2023 JOLED declared bankruptcy as debts mounted to $257 million.  The fab was closed and most of the employees were laid off.  As a creditor Japan Display (6740.JP) acquired JOLED’s IP and the remaining OLED R&D team, while later in the year Chinastar/TCL acquired JOLED’s ink-jet production equipment, which was shipped to Chinastar’s T5 fab in Wuhan, China to facilitate CSOT’s production of IJP products, which began at the end of 2024.
IT OLED Gen 8.6 Projects
​

​Since then Chinastar/TCL has announced that they have begun construction of a Gen 8.6 ink-jet printing fab, a $4.15 billion dollar project known as T8 in Guangzhou, China,  This fab, which will be built in phases, will start with an ink-jet line with a capacity of 15,000 Gen 8.6 sheets/month (5.85m2 x 15,000 = 87,550m2 or 1.44 million 14” panels per month at full capacity) and eventually expand to 22,500 sheets per month. 
Interestingly, Chinastar/TCL just announced that they will be spending an additional $211 million to triple the capacity of its Gen 5.5 ink-jet line, which is based on the equipment they received from JOLED. In 3Q that fab was running at ~9,000 sheets/month, a bit under half of the stated capacity of the equipment when it was part of JOLED.  This fab is expected to begin mass production during the 1st half of next year, which leads us to believe by the end of June 2026 Chinastar will have the capacity to produce at least 10,000 sheets/month however we expect utilization and yield will reduce that number considerably.
That said, in late 2027 or early 2028 when both the Chinastar Gen 8.6 (Phase 1) project and the Gen 5.5 expansion projects are expected to come online, Chinastar could have the ability to produce up to 15,000 Gen 8.6 sheets/month and 30,000 Gen 5.5 sheets/month, ~2.4 million 14” units/month, or just under 29 million 14” units/year.  Currently ~10m OLED panels are produced each year (all sizes, so Chinastar would be able to produce almost 3x today’s current demand.  Considering demand growth, further OLED adoption in the IT space, and the capacity coming online from Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), BOE (200725.CH), and Visionox (002387.CH), we expect competition in this burgeoning space will be intense.
Market Outlook: Oversupply Risks and Technical Challenges
As we have noted in the past, capacity expectations must be tempered with realistic utilization rates, lower than expected yields, longer than expected customer qualification timelines, and process optimization issues.  All of these factors play into production estimates that are lower than what the maximum capacity claims might be. Additionally, two of the four Gen 8.6 OLED fabs that are under construction are using non-traditional production processes that could cause production or yield issues that could delay adoption.  Should either of the non-traditional technologies prove to be as cost efficient as expected, the industry’s competitive balance could change considerably.  These factors, and the level of adoption by customers are an industry balancing act that is the crux of the current IT OLED industry, with the next 2-3 years the playing field on which this battle will take place.
Conclusion – Lots of Ifs
The aggressive expansion of Chinastar (CSOT) represents a pivotal moment in the display industry’s history. By successfully integrating JOLED’s legacy assets with a massive $4.15 billion investment in its own Gen 8.6 T8 fab, CSOT is attempting to do what no other manufacturer has achieved: commercializing Inkjet Printing (IJP) OLED at a mass-market scale.
If CSOT successfully navigates the technical hurdles of yield and process stability, they stand to disrupt the industry's cost structure, potentially offering OLED IT panels at significantly lower prices than the vacuum-evaporation methods used by Samsung and others. However, with capacity projected to exceed current demand by nearly 300% by 2028, the market is heading toward an uncertain balance between supply and demand. The winners in the 2026–2028 window will not necessarily be those with the highest theoretical capacity, but those who can achieve stable yields and secure customer qualification first. For CSOT, the transition from JOLED’s pilot-scale struggles to industrial-scale dominance is the ultimate test of the inkjet thesis.

While the AI boom has driven DRAM prices up by over 560%, NAND Flash is entering a critical "silent squeeze." With Enterprise SSD demand outpacing supply and major producers like SK Hynix (000660.KS) already thought to be sold out for 2026, the market is bracing for double-digit price hikes.
NAND vs. DRAM: The AI Price Gap
Much of focus on memory prices has been  on DRAM as the obvious beneficiary of the AI boom.

• DRAM Price Increase: +561.1% (Average)
• NAND Price Increase: +63.6% (Average)

While a price increase of over 63% might seem extreme in a more normalized market, it pales in comparison to DRAM’s rise.  That said, NAND producers, typically the same group that produces DRAM seem to be signaling that they will be raising NAND prices again in 1Q.  This is despite the rise this year, as demand for NAND continues to grow and the fact that NAND products are experiencing another round of price increases as we write this note.
2026 NAND Price Forecast: The Supply Shortage
 We have seen predictions that NAND prices will rise again in 1Q by more than 10% (Current Forecast) and 20% to 30% for the full 2026 year, based on demand growth of 20% to 22% against capacity growth of 15% to 17%, with rumors that supplier SK Hynix has already sold out its 2026 production an indication that negotiations for those in need of volume in 2026 have already taken place. 

• Q1 2026 Forecast: Prices expected to rise >10%
• Full Year 2026 Forecast: Prices projected to increase 20% to 30%.
• Supply vs. Demand: Demand growth (20–22%) is projected to exceed capacity growth (15–17%).

Why Are NAND Producers Restricting Capacity?
Enterprise SSDs and data center storage continue to drive that NAND demand while producers are being very cautious about adding capacity.  We believe there are three reasons for that caution:

• The 2022 Price Collapse – In 2022 the price of 512Gb wafer prices fell from ~$4.00 to ~$1.40.  Inflation, the end of COVID demand, and considerable overproduction were responsible, and left producers selling product below cost.
• The Capital Allocation Choice – DRAM or NAND – Which of the two potential products would be more attractive to producers?  The obvious choice, at least currently, is DRAM as HBM is the crux of demand in the AI server space.  While NAND is getting more attractive as prices rise, if you have to choose, NAND comes in second.
• The Potential AI Bubble – Perhaps a bit more speculative, capacity expansion caution based on the possibility of an AI implosion always looms a potential factor when spending billions on new capacity.

These three factors alone are likely able to keep spending for NAND capacity below demand levels but adding that knowing you will likely sell out most, if not all of your 2026 capacity early in the year, might also contribute to the NAND capacity expansion hesitancy.
Top NAND Flash Producers by Sales (Q3 2025)
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​Conclusion: The Silent Squeeze in Storage
While the semiconductor spotlight remains fixed on DRAM and the astronomical rise of HBM, NAND Flash is quietly entering a period of structural shortage that seems to guarantee upward price pressure through 2026. The market dynamics suggest that the current 63.6% price recovery is not a ceiling, but rather a baseline for the next fiscal year.
The governing force for 2026 will be producer discipline born from trauma and opportunity cost. The memory giants (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) are effectively "shorting" their own NAND supply. By prioritizing high-margin HBM production and refusing to expand NAND capacity due to the scars of the 2022 collapse and fears of an AI bubble, they have engineered a seller’s market.
With demand growth (20–22%) structurally outpacing capacity growth (15–17%), and major players like SK Hynix already reportedly sold out for the year, the leverage has shifted entirely to the manufacturers. For investors and enterprise buyers, the narrative is clear: NAND may not be the volatility "sprinter" that DRAM is in the AI era, but it has become the steady, high-yield climber. As data centers fill with AI processors, the critical need for high-performance storage (Enterprise SSDs) ensures that NAND producers will enjoy sustained pricing power and revenue growth well into 2026, free from the threat of imminent oversupply.

Double 11, Singles Day, or just 11/11, it is the biggest shopping holiday in the world, outstripping Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.  Originally a celebration instigated by college students (singles) in the 1990’s, Alibaba (BABA), one of China’s largest e-commerce retailers turned it into a commercial event in 2009 and it has grown ever since. 
The Only True Metric: Daily Gross Merchandise Value (Daily GMV)
In earlier periods Chinese retailers, like JD.com (JD) and Douyin (pvt) would release GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) reports after the holiday, extoling the holiday’s growth and their own, but as consumption growth slowed in recent years, retailers no longer supplied such information, with results being based on 3rd party estimates rather than actual reports from retailers.  Another mitigating factor is the number of days the GMV covers, as it has changed over the years, increasing from 11 days in 2020 to 36 days this year.  This means that the only true measure of the holiday’s success is the total GMV/number of days, or daily GMV, a very different metric from the published gross GMV data.
Decoding the Spin: 2025 Syntun & Media Highlights
The press release from China’s Syntun does not state the GMV on a y/y basis, but the headline, which reads “The GMV during China ‘Double 11 Shopping Festival’ reached 1695 billion CNY (~238 billion USD)” would lead one to believe that the number estimated was a positive one, and the copy continued that effort with phrases like “this year's festival has transcended its role as a mere shopping frenzy, reflecting a profound transformation within the retail ecosystem and deep technological integration”, and does not miss the chance to reference AI (“the comprehensive integration of AI technology has emerged as a defining feature...”).
One can see that the data shown in the 2025 Chinese media snippets below have little or no base from which to verify the calculation

• “Electronics categories showed bifurcated performance. AI glasses sales jumped 25x YoY as consumers adopted emerging form factors, according to People’s Daily. “
• “Smart glasses increased 346%, while robotics brands recorded double-digit growth, the article stated.”
• “Mobile phone and computer device sales concentrated on JD, which captured 56.9% and 62.7% market shares respectively in these segments, according to China Britain Business Council analysis.”
• “Home appliances benefited directly from government trade-in subsidies. 139 brands exceeded RMB 14M in GMV, with over 9,600 home appliance and furniture brands doubling sales YoY, according to Queue-it’s November 2025 statistics compilation.”

The Bottom Line: Stagnation in Daily Sales
But the bottom line is that nothing expands forever and manufacturing headlines that would imply growth to the general public is not unusual in China or any other country.  The Chinese government is very oriented toward proving it can ‘outgrow’ the US and other large economies, and while we expect the state did not force Alibaba and others to stop showing GMV that might point to slow or no growth, we expect it is psychologically ingrained enough that retailers will follow that path without hesitation. 
All of that said, Figure 1 shows the reported GMV without compensation for the number of days included, and the average GMV which compensates for the total number of days included in the GMV, which paints a different picture, one where the average GMV/day seems to have leveled off for the last two years.  This is consistent with Chinese retail (on-line and physical) results as the ‘New for Old’ subsidies wind down this year and the generally slower consumer electronics growth seen during previous holidays this year.  2026 will be a test for the Chinese CE space as we expect another year of consumer subsidies will have a diminished effect.  Consumers have borrowed against forward sales now for 18 months+ and we expect there will have to be a ‘true up’ quarter sooner or later.

Competition & Differentiation
Competition in the OLED display space goes far beyond product specifications and styles.  Each panel producer must find a way for display differentiation to secure a significant market presence.  Brands capitalize on these technological differences to demonstrate expertise.  While CE brands have their own focus on differentiation, if they can generate a more distinct product at the basic level they can use it to point out how different their technology is from others.  Samsung Display (pvt) is among the biggest proponents of this concept, years ago ending all LCD display production and focusing almost exclusively on OLED displays.  This has served them well as they have been able to dominate the OLED display space for years, but over time it is inevitable that other producers make inroads and that difference is no longer unique.
As the display industry looks toward shifting focus away from a heavy reliance on TV panel production, the necessity for more specialized Gen 8.6 OLED display fabs that can produce OLED IT products (Monitors, Laptops, and Tablets) in a high volume setting becomes essential.  Instead of substrates that are 2.775 m2 (Gen 6), these new fabs use substrates that are 5.65 m2, twice as large in area, not only more than doubling the unit volume per sheet but improving the efficiency (Glass Usage/Glass Area) of the substrate..

The Players
There are four such Gen 8.6 OLED fab projects at various stages of development across the display industry.  Both Samsung Display and China’s BOE (200725.CH) are heading toward the last stages of equipment installation, while Visionox (002387.CH) is still in the construction phase and Chinastar (000100.CH) broke ground on their project in October of this year.  These are large and expensive projects.
Samsung Display – Their Gen 8.6 fab, designated A6, is built on the site of a former LCD fab.  It is expected to cost between $3 billion and $3.1 billion US and has an expected capacity of 15,000 sheets/month
BOE – BOE’s Gen 8.6 fab in Chengdu, designate B16, is expected to cost between $9.0 billion and $9.9 billion, with an expected capacity of 32,000 sheets.
Visionox – The Visionox Gen 8.6 fab project in Hefei, is expected to cost $7.7 billion and have a total capacity of 32,000 sheets/month.
Chinastar – Chinastar’s Gen 8.6 fab, dubbed T8 (Guangzhou) is expected to cost between $4.1 billion and $4.5 billion with an expected capacity of 22,500 sheets, although the company has hinted it could be doubled to 45,000 sheets/month.
Large Process Differences
Based on these specifications, the differentiation  between suppliers seems minimal, but that is definitely not the case.  Typically OLED displays are produced using large deposition chambers where OLED materials are vaporized and passed through fine metal masks (think – screens) that precisely place the materials on a substrate.  These are very expensive tools (hundreds of millions) as are the masks.  Given that the OLED materials are not only placed on the substrate but also attach to the chamber walls and build up on the masks, the tool needs to be taken offline and cleaned regularly, while the masks must be constantly replaced.  This leads to a relatively mature but inefficient process, however one that is well-known to both SDC and BOE from their Gen 6 OLED display fabs.
Visionox is approaching the Gen 8.6 OLED process differently, basing its fab on the use of photolithography to place OLED materials.  It is a new display technology that has never been used for large-scale production, so a successful project could separate Visionox from BOE and SDC, giving them a competitive advantage.  Chinastar is also taking a new route but has settled on using ink-jet printing as its deposition method, a technique that is used by others for parts of the OLED display production process, but not for the key deposition steps.  Again, a successful project would put Chinastar in a class by itself.
Risk
Why would two of the four panel producers involved in Gen 8.6 OLED display production take such a massive risk?  They have no choice.  Both Samsung Display and BOE are OLED giants, with multiple fabs and years of production experience.  Neither Visionox nor Chinastar have the OLED resources and experience to compete directly with these two leaders, making it difficult for them to become suppliers to large CE brands who must be assured that capacity and yield will be there when they need it.  Samsung and BOE will eventually refine their Gen 8.6 processes and present customers with a reliable supply of OLED IT products, forcing Visionox and Chinastar to rely more of product differentiation than competing on volume and yield.
Aside from the process differentiation, there is the matter of cost.  Not the cost of the fab, which will get depreciated over time, but the cost of producing the panels themselves.  As noted, the deposition process used by SDC and BOE is wasteful.  Up to 70% of the OLED materials are wasted as the materials collect on the inside of the chamber and on the mask.  The process itself must be done under high vacuum conditions to keep OLED material molecules from colliding with gas molecules, and while the OLED materials must be heated to vaporize them, the substrate and the mask must maintain a cooler temperature to prevent expansion that would misalign the materials.  The vacuum makes the process cumbersome in that the chamber must be pressurized and depressurized each time a sheet enters the system while  low pressure must be precisely maintained throughout the process, slowing throughput and complicating substrate transfers.
While the lithographic process is still being developed, Chinastar’s ink-jet printing process is a bit more mature, as it is used to encapsulate OLED displays and to deposit quantum dot materials in SDC’s QD/OLED process.  This makes the process easier to cost out when comparing it to metal mask deposition.  theoretically, the processes compare like this:

Conclusion: The Next Generation of OLED Differentiation
The pivot toward Gen 8.6 OLED fabs marks a critical inflection point where the fierce competition among display producers moves beyond product style and focuses squarely on manufacturing process differentiation. The shift from 2.775m2 substrates (Gen 6) to 5.05m2 substrates is not just a 2X scale-up; it's a fundamental change that more than doubles unit volume and significantly improves material efficiency for high-demand IT products (laptops, monitors, tablets).
While industry leaders Samsung Display (SDC) and BOE leverage their experience with the mature but costly Fine Metal Mask (FMM) Evaporation process, their massive capital expenditure (up to $9.9 billion) and process inefficiency present a vulnerability. The FMM approach's reliance on high vacuum, constant mask replacement, and up to 70% material waste creates a high-cost structure that will eventually be challenged.
Conversely, Visionox and China Star (CSOT) are making a necessary and high-stakes bet on FMM-free technologies:

• Visionox with its new, photolithography-based process (ViP).
• CSOT with its Ink-Jet Printing (IJP) method.

The IJP process, in particular, offers a stark operational advantage, boasting 85%–90% material utilization, 20%–30% lower manufacturing cost, and 90% fewer vacuum processes. These inherent efficiencies, combined with lower equipment investment, position IJP as the cost-competitive roadmap for mass-produced, large-area OLEDs.
Ultimately, the successful execution of these Gen 8.6 projects will determine the future hierarchy of the global display market. For established giants, success means solidifying supply dominance with reliable volume. For challengers like Visionox and CSOT, success requires proving the viability and reliability of their innovative processes. This technological diversification is not merely an option but a strategic imperative that will redefine the cost structure, supply dynamics, and competitive landscape of the premium IT display segment for the next decade.

Display fabs are expensive, ranging from ~$300 million for existing fab upgrades to over $8 billion for current greenfield Gen 8.6 OLED fabs.  There is a very substantial geographical imbalance in how these fabs are financed, with South Korea, home to Samsung Display (pvt) and LG Display (LPL), typically using company based fab financing, and China, home to BOE(200725.CH), Chinastar (pvt), Visionox (002387.CH), Tianma (000050.CH), HKC (248.HK), EverDisplay (688538.CH), using government financing.
South Korea's Private Capital Model vs. China's Direct Government Equity
The South Korean government rarely gives direct subsidies to its large companies for fab expansion or new fab construction, but they do finance up to ~50% of R&D costs associated with the project (75% for smaller entities) and between 30% and 50% of the cost of infrastructure improvements (Water, power, access) through tax benefits, with only a few smaller projects getting direct funding.
China is different.  Almost all display projects, expansions or Greenfield, are directly subsidized by the government.  In most cases it is the local and provincial governments that partner with the producer to provide financing, along with guaranteeing bank loans.  These government entities become shareholding partners with the company in each project, taking stakes typically between 30% and 100% depending on the company, the type of project, and the technology, and in most cases continuing to fund the project after the fab is operational.
This gives a distinct advantage to China’s large panel producers who face far fewer financial constraints when developing project timelines and making equipment purchases, while allowing them to sustain losses for longer periods as the fab becomes established.  While some of the Chinese panel producers are public entities and have general public shareholders, they march to the beat of their local or provincial funding partners who control the purse strings, while Korean and Taiwanese producers are far more influenced by their shareholders and traditional profitability measures.
This is particularly important in the latest battle between Korean and Chinese OLED suppliers.  Both constituencies are developing Gen 8.6 OLED fabs for the production of IT products and funding for these massive projects is biased toward Chinese producers.  While not a new scenario, to understand how pervasive Chinese government display funding is, we list a number of Chinese display projects and the estimated government funding participation percentages

​Case Study: Hefei Government’s $415M Cash Infusion Secures Visionox's ViP Gen 8.6 Fab
But the buck does not stop there.  Focusing on the Visionox entry in the table above, it seems that the Hefei government noticed that the company had not been profitable since 2020 and was having some cashflow issues, especially given the large project the company has taken on.  The Hefei government decided to make sure that nothing would disturb this very large investment in Visionox’s IT OLED Gen 8.6 fab project.  The funding for the Gen 8.6 OLED fab project remained intact, Visionox (the corporate entity) itself was where this were less solid, so the Hefei government stepped in and provided up to $415 million through a private placement (16% below market price), increasing its stake in Visionox from 11.45% to 31.9%.  We also note that the Visionox project (Gen 8.6) was originally slated to be both a standard mask-based OLED line and a maskless photolithography based line using Visionox’s proprietary VIP process.  Visionox had been leaning toward starting the project with the standard mask line to potentially generate income, but ‘funding sources’ indicated that unless the project began with the new maskless fab, it would not get funded.  Needless to say, the plans changed to the VIP fab being the initial project goal.
 
Conclusion: The State-Backed Display Arms Race
The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates a profound and strategically critical geographical imbalance in the financing of the global display industry. While South Korean producers like Samsung Display and LG Display rely on internally generated capital, traditional debt financing, and marginal government support for R&D and infrastructure, Chinese panel makers are fueled by direct and substantial government equity participation and subsidies.
This model of State-Backed Capitalism for display manufacturing fundamentally shifts the competitive landscape and has pushed Chinese producers to value visible share over global competitors over profitability. The Chinese system, driven by local and provincial governments taking stakes often ranging from 30% to over 80% in capital-intensive projects (such as the 80% government share in Visionox's Gen 8.6 fab), grants domestic producers a decisive advantage:

• Financial Resilience: They can sustain massive losses for years as they establish new fabs, free from the immediate pressures of private shareholders and traditional profitability metrics that constrain their Korean and Taiwanese rivals.
• Strategic Mandate: The case of Visionox's Gen 8.6 project—where the Hefei government provided a $415 million capital injection to stabilize the parent company and mandated the use of the proprietary, high-risk ViP maskless technology—underscores that these investments are driven by governmental  strategic imperative: to secure technological leadership and domestic supply, not just commercial returns.

All in, the competitive dynamics of the global display market have not been and currently are not purely commercially motivated; they are determined by state industrial policy. Chinese producers "march to the beat of their local or provincial funding partners," allowing them to accelerate project timelines, aggressively expand capacity, and pursue next-generation technologies at a scale and speed that is almost impossible for their competitors who remain accountable to traditional market forces. This state-backed financial strategy is the most significant factor propelling China toward dominance in the future of the display industry, but at the same time has pushed regional competitors to focus on the opposite metric, profitability, by stepping away from commodity products and emphasizing premium displays.  It’s a hard battle to fight but the current IT OLED Gen 8.6 fab projects will give some indication of the long-term influence of Chinese government funding over more traditional corporate sources expansion

Remember when LTPS was touted to be replacing a-Si, or when LTPO was touted to be replacing LTPS?  Probably not, but once again rumors that Apple (AAPL) has decided to focus on a new  display technology have stimulated speculation that a change is afoot.  These are not really display technologies, they are backplane technologies, the circuits that tell the pixels in n OLED display when to turn on and how bright to shine.  Without them the screen would remain black.
What is an OLED Backplane? Defining the Core Display Technology
These semiconductor circuits, known as thin-film transistors (TFT), are based on either silicon (two forms) or an oxide of Indium, Gallium and Zinc, each having specific and distinct characteristics that allow panel producers to fir them to the needs of the display.  But before we go into why this is important, a minute on what these circuits do.
Crucial Function

• OLED pixels are made up of three sub-pixels, one red, one green, and one blue.  By mixing these colors in precise proportions millions of pixel colors can be formed. 
• A 4K display has 8,294,400 pixels made up of three subpixels each, for a total of 24,883,200 little dots of color that need to be told when to got on, for how long, and at what brightness level. 
• The display backplane take the detailed information about the color and brightness of every pixel and translate that into a sequence of signals that tell every sub-pixel what to do.  This means that every one of the 24,883,209 sub-pixels gets that information every 1/90th of a second, essentially  over 2.2 billion times each second.

The characteristics of the backplane makes a vast difference to the performance of the display.
The Battle of Backplane Materials – Electron Mobility
Among the most vital characteristic of OLED backplanes is electron mobility, or the ability of an electron to move through a material.  High electron mobility means that electrons can travel rapidly and that translates to higher switching speeds, essential for high resolution (more pixels) and high refresh rate displays.  The structure of the material gives an indication of how easily electrons move through it, as randomness and imperfections cause electrons to lose momentum.  Therefore, on a general basis, the more structured the material is, the faster electrons can move through it. 
A-Si & LTPS
Amorphous materials (a-Si) have low electron mobility as they are randomly structured, but  when a film of amorphous silicon is annealed with an excimer laser the silicon melts and reforms in a crystalline structure (LTPS) increasing its electron mobility along with the cost, but a necessary step for higher resolution displays.
IGZO & HMO
Rather than a silicon base, IGZO (Oxide) materials combine Indium, Gallium, Zinc, and Oxygen by bombarding it with plasma (sputtering).  The material, after sputtering, is amorphous, but is then annealed, removing defects.  IGZO is ideal for backplanes in mobile devices as it consumes less power than LTPS, but there is a new material on the horizon that fulfills that same low power metric but has an even higher electron mobility and is easier to produce.  It is known as HMO (High Mobility Oxide) and Apple seems enamored with this material and is believed to have decided to use it for its displays once research has been completed.

Conclusion: The Role of High Mobility Oxide (HMO)
HMO's core function is to be the best-of-both-worlds backplane, achieving High electron mobility (like LTPS) to support high-resolution and high refresh rates, while maintaining the ultra-low leakage current essential for superior power efficiency and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) capability (down to 1 Hz).
The Strategic Advantage

1. Cost and Simplicity -  It provides a path to power-efficient VRR displays with a single oxide material, avoiding the complexity, high cost, and multiple processing steps required to fuse LTPS and IGZO on the same panel (LTPO).
2. Scalability - Unlike LTPS, which is constrained by laser annealing, HMO processes are more easily applied to larger glass substrates (Gen 8 and beyond), making it suitable for larger displays like tablets, notebooks, and TVs.
3. Future Standard: HMO is positioned to be the preferred backplane for future high-performance, low-power devices (including VR/AR and premium mobile), as its performance closes the gap with LTPS while simplifying manufacturing compared to LTPO.

Sharp (6753.JP),a major backer of IGZO, and Japan Display (6740.JP) have been promoting the use of HMO in mobile devices, but even the slightest mention that Apple is potentially moving toward mass adoption of the technology will spur other panel producers to step up their R&D on the material.  Knowing what it does and how it works is the key to understanding the potential implications that adoption by a major CE player might have on the backplane ecosystem.

Is Now the Best Time to Buy a Samsung Premium TV?
It’s time to measure whether you are getting a good deal if you are buying a TV set.  Typically the year’s lowest price are found around Thanksgiving and Black Friday (Between day 311 and day 330), with prices rising through the Christmas holiday and the end of the year.  Figure 1 shows  a comparison of Samsung (005930.KS) Premium* TV set prices over the period of one year (1st available year).  The composite value (the sum of the price of all category models) is relevant but less so  than the price trend relative to other years, as the make-up of each year’s model roster is different.
Our data indicates that Samsung’s 2025 Premium TV (Mini-LED/QD) models saw a large price drop (down 16.2% over the last month), pushing the group to a yearly low (down 24.2% YTD) with almost all models hitting yearly lows.  At this point in the year most brands are heavily focused on current year models, with Samsung’s Premium 2024 models down only 7% for the month, although they are down 22.5% over the 2024/2025 period.  Interestingly, the 2025 models are already down 25% YTD, a bit more than the 2024 models, with the 2025 models looking like they are still declining in price.
November is a time when some of the more extreme pricing that Samsung does with its ultra-large TV sets loosens up.  The example would be Samsung’s 8K 98” Mini-LED/QD TV, which carried a $40,000 price tag for much of the year until a $5,000 price drop in August.  However, this month the price has been reduced again by 14.3% to $30,000, offering this behemoth at a 25% discount to its original price.  More apropos to the average consumer, we look at the Samsung’s mid-tier (QN65QN80F) 65” model.  This premium set is not too small and not too large for the average living room.  It is a Mini-LED/QD 4K set with all the bells and whistles typically allocated to Samsung’s mid-tier price range.  When the set became available at the end of March, it was priced at $1,800. This week (11/11) it is priced at $1,000, down 44% for the year.
Relative to 2024, while the basic trend remains the same,, there has been more price volatility this year.  This is likely a function of the trade tariff situation between the US and its allied trading partners, including South Korea.  We expect, on a short-term basis, that Samsung was working toward maintaining inventory levels that would give it some leeway (both directions) as the tariff situation changed.. Currently, if we align the starting value points for each year, 2025 discounting has been a bit ahead of 2024, which we expect will be maintained through Black Friday, but we expect that new models in 2026 to see price increases at the onset..
Samsung typically uses the Consumer Electronics Show in January to ‘reveal’ the company’s new TV models, but holds back pricing information until the pre-order period, between two weeks and a month before the official release date.  This leaves us blind to 2026 Premium TV set pricing until late February, but we expect to see higher initial prices to absorb higher component prices and tariffs.  That said, we also expect that Samsung might reduce the size of the Mini-LED/QD lineup, as it did this year by eliminating quantum dot only sets from the premium category.  Given that there are six price tiers for Mini-LED/QD TVs, we believe Samsung could eliminate one tier without stunting the premium Mini-LED line.    While Samsung has been a major proponent of 8K TVs, power consumption restrictions in Europe made 8K sales more difficult this year and while we would not expect Samsung to give up on 8K completely, we could see a single price tier, rather than the current two. 
Price Signals and the Purchase Decision
Based on the price trend analysis of Samsung's 2025 Premium Mini-LED/QD TV sets the data presents a clear signal for consumers.
The current deep discounts—such as the 24.2% Year-to-Date drop across the premium line and the 44% discount on the mid-tier QN65QN80F ($1,800 to $1,000)—confirm that the period around Day 311 to Day 330 (Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2025) is living up to its reputation as the lowest price point of the year. The aggressive discounting on the ultra-large 8K models, such as the $10,000 reduction on the 98” set, further illustrates a full-scale inventory clearance push.
Crucially, this year’s price drop comes with an added variable: future pricing risk. While new models will debut at CES in January, our expected higher initial MSRPs for the 2026 lineup—driven by component cost increases and trade tariff uncertainty between the US and its trading partners—suggest that the price floor for comparable feature sets is likely to be meaningfully elevated next year.
Conclusion:
This is not just a historical discount; it is a convergence of end-of-year clearance and a hedge against future market uncertainty. For the majority of consumers, the current pricing offers the best possible value on a premium Samsung Mini-LED/QD TV. If you are in the market for a high-end 4K or 8K set, our data strongly suggests that the decision to purchase should be made now, before prices rebound through the Christmas season and before the inevitable, tariff-driven inflation of the 2026 TV model launch.
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