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
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​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.

​Back in 2015 Japan Display (6740.JP), Sony, and Panasonic (6752.JP) all contributed their OLED businesses to the formation of a combined entity known as JOLED (pvt), with Sony retaining some small panel OLED assets.  The venture was funded primarily by INCJ (Innovation Network Corporation of Japan), a partnership between the Japanese government and a number of major Japanese companies.  INCJ provided 75% of the funding with JDI 15%, Panasonic 5% and Sony 5% with the goal of utilizing Panasonic’s ink-jet printing technology and Sony’s OLED R&D to develop IJP OLED displays, with JDI announcing its intention to increase its stake to 50% in 2017, which unfortunately did not occur due to financial issues at JDI, but JOLED was able to raise an additional $400m in 2018 from a group led by automotive component provider Denso (6902.JP).
JOLED was the first display manufacturer to produce commercial displays using IJP and in early 2018 began shipping what were then high resolution medical displays, followed by a 21” monitor panel for ASUS (2357.TT) and a year later began producing IJP OLED panels from a fab in Nomi Japan and in 2020 TCL (000100.CH) took a 10.76% stake ($280m US) in JOLED in order to license the JOLED IJP technology to Chinastar (pvt), TCL’s display affiliate.   Unfortunately the supply contracts that JOLED has been able to secure have not been particularly large, making it difficult for the company to realize the cost benefits afford to IJP relative to other OLED deposition platforms, and while the company supplied the display for LG Electronica (066570.KS) first OLED monitor,  certainly a feather in its cap considering LG’s affiliate LG Display (LPL) is the premier producer of large panel OLED displays, volumes and yields have not been strong and deal with Lexus (LEXUS.IN) fell through after years of development when the company was unable to deliver product that met specifications.
A recent visit from the chairman of TCL and the announcement that Chinastar and JOLED are sharing IP to develop new products in addition to the 65” 8K OLED ink-jet printed TV that was jointly developed, gives some hope that TCL is serious about maintaining JOLED as a partner and could fund them further if necessary, but whether that means an additional stake in JOLED or a takeover of the entire company by TCL, JOLED seems to be in need of one of two things, financial aid or higher volume orders, and while TCL could certainly provide either or both, would that undermine Chinastar’s OLED efforts, which have been oriented toward developing enough expertise in the OLED space to gain entry into the Apple display supply chain.  We would expect some movement either way by the end of this year.

​Yesterday Chinastar (pvt), a subsidiary of TCL (000100.CH) ‘released’ two inkjet printed OLED displays, a 65” 8K and a 14” (4K?), a presage of what it hopes its most recent expansion plans will be part of.  On 11/2/21 we noted that Chinastar had petitioned the Shenzhen government to acquire land adjacent to its T6/T7 production fab in order to scale production, some of which would be for OLED.  With the release of these two IJP panels, it sets the tone for Chinastar to build at least one dedicated Gen 8 ink-jet printing line as part of that project, which would be China’s first IJP mass production line.  TCL has been working with Japan’s JOLED (pvt), in which it took a 10.76% stake last year, to develop the technology for mass production.  We target mass production for late 2023 to early 2024, but leave considerable room for delays, both from a process and a customer standpoint.
Chinastar is promoting IJP for OLED based on its belief that the process will allow for a cost/unit that is lower than that of the more typical OLED deposition process, with the expectation that OLED material utilization can be improved from ~60% to 90% using IJP and that the complexity of the process can be reduced, particularly not having to deposit materials in a vacuum.  While the theoretical metrics for IJP deposition are certainly promising, moving from a pilot line to a high volume mass production environment has proven more difficult and time consuming than originally thought, and while IJP is used for OLED encapsulation, it is still being developed for material deposition.  Samsung Display (pvt) is using IJP for process steps in its push toward mass production of QD/OLED displays and much work is being done on the deposition of quantum dots for a number of applications, but even Chinastar says it is studying the customer and product introduction schedules to determine the details of what IJP large panel mass production would look like.
JOLED itself does produce OLED displays ranging from 12.3” to 32” including some IJP models, although they tend to be for specialized applications.  JOLED does run an IJP line, using IJP technology from Panasonic (6752.JP), one of the two (Sony (SNE)) was the other) companies whose OLED divisions were merged to form JOLED in 2015, however we expect Chinastar’s and TCL’s plans are to bring IJP OLED production to a more massive scale in order to compete with LG Display’s OLED TV domination.  Again, in theory it makes sense, but the practical application of the technology on a more massive scale has taken years longer than originally expected, not only because of the hardware, but also due to the modification of materials necessary for IJP itself.  In order to compete with vacuum OLED deposition processes, such soluble materials must exhibit the same characteristics as their evaporative counterparts, which has also proved challenging.