Samsung Supremacy
Earlier this month Chinese smartphone brand Oppo (pvt) teased with a few words introducing Oppo’s first flagship foldable smartphone, the Find N, which was in development for 4 years and has morphed through 6 generations. The phone is expected to be released tonight (Wednesday) in China as part of Oppo’s annual Inno Day. While the picture (Fig 4) shows little, much of the speculation is that the new foldable will look similar to the Samsung (005930.KS) Z Fold, with Korean media indicating that Samsung Display (pvt) is the producer of the 7.1” folding display, while BOE (200725.CH) is the producer of the 5.45” external display.
As SDC uses UTG (Ultra-thin glass) rather than polyimide films as a cover for the foldable display, the Find N is the first Chinese foldable to employ UTG, with previous foldables from Huawei (pvt) and Xiaomi (1810.HK) using polyimide. The Oppo foldable is also the first Chinese company to use an LTPO (Low-temperature poly-silicon) backplane, again a characteristic of SDC’s most recent foldables. While Chinese panel producers have supplied folding displays to Xiaomi for its previous foldable, it is expected that the upcoming Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold 2 will use an 8” SDC folding display (with UTG) and a Chinastar (pvt) 6.5” external display , while both foldable and external displays were supplied by Chinastar on the previous model. Vivo (pvt), sister company to Oppo, is also expected to use the SDC foldable and a BOE external display for its foldable in 2022.
Huawei was thought to also have been considering using SDC’s foldables for its upcoming upgrade to its Mate X2 foldable but seems to have decided to remain with foldable supplier BOE, along with Honor (pvt), a former Huawei brand, who is also expected to use BOE for its foldable next year. Samsung Display is the share leader (3Q) in the flexible OLED market, with a 62.2% share by our calculations, but does face competition from BOE and LG Display (LPL), although combined they still have only a 28.9% share, but when it comes to foldables, SDC is definitely the leader with a share over 90% this year.
Samsung’s push to spread foldables into the laptop segment has given them a new market, also one that they dominate, and while the unit volumes for foldable notebooks are still relatively small, the surface area is considerable large than for smartphones.. With parent Samsung Electronics’ foldable volume expected to double in 2022 from 7m to 14m units, and the overall market for foldable expected to double from 9m to between 18m and 19.5m units, we expect SDC to maintain a substantial lead over competitors in the foldable space despite the competition from BOE. It might be a bit more difficult to maintain such a high share in 2023, as Chinese foldable producers sharpen their production skills, but SDC has been one step ahead since day one and will likely remain so in 2023 and beyond.
As SDC uses UTG (Ultra-thin glass) rather than polyimide films as a cover for the foldable display, the Find N is the first Chinese foldable to employ UTG, with previous foldables from Huawei (pvt) and Xiaomi (1810.HK) using polyimide. The Oppo foldable is also the first Chinese company to use an LTPO (Low-temperature poly-silicon) backplane, again a characteristic of SDC’s most recent foldables. While Chinese panel producers have supplied folding displays to Xiaomi for its previous foldable, it is expected that the upcoming Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold 2 will use an 8” SDC folding display (with UTG) and a Chinastar (pvt) 6.5” external display , while both foldable and external displays were supplied by Chinastar on the previous model. Vivo (pvt), sister company to Oppo, is also expected to use the SDC foldable and a BOE external display for its foldable in 2022.
Huawei was thought to also have been considering using SDC’s foldables for its upcoming upgrade to its Mate X2 foldable but seems to have decided to remain with foldable supplier BOE, along with Honor (pvt), a former Huawei brand, who is also expected to use BOE for its foldable next year. Samsung Display is the share leader (3Q) in the flexible OLED market, with a 62.2% share by our calculations, but does face competition from BOE and LG Display (LPL), although combined they still have only a 28.9% share, but when it comes to foldables, SDC is definitely the leader with a share over 90% this year.
Samsung’s push to spread foldables into the laptop segment has given them a new market, also one that they dominate, and while the unit volumes for foldable notebooks are still relatively small, the surface area is considerable large than for smartphones.. With parent Samsung Electronics’ foldable volume expected to double in 2022 from 7m to 14m units, and the overall market for foldable expected to double from 9m to between 18m and 19.5m units, we expect SDC to maintain a substantial lead over competitors in the foldable space despite the competition from BOE. It might be a bit more difficult to maintain such a high share in 2023, as Chinese foldable producers sharpen their production skills, but SDC has been one step ahead since day one and will likely remain so in 2023 and beyond.
Oppo's Find N teaser - Source: Oppo
Estimates for OLED notebook production this year are for between 5.3m and 5.6m units, up from less than 1m last year, growing to ~7.5m in 2022 and 15m in 2023, representing not only explosive unit volume growth but significant demand growth on an m2 basis, one of the reasons behind OLED capacity expansion projects in China. SDC will likely see it overall share of the flexible OLED market decline on a unit basis, but will likely see its actual share of OLED panels for notebooks on an m2 basis increase in 2022, as it has established relationships with almost all of the notebook brands that offer OLED displays, especially its parent, who is expected to have a 20% share of the OLED notebook market itself this year, second only to Asus (2357.TT).
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