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9/28/2022

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Samsung Display’s (pvt) CEO, JS Choi, seems to have taken on the additional roll of head of SDC marketing as he has been quite visible over the last few months promoting SDC’s new and developing products at conferences and trade shows all across the globe. He did not miss a beat during his speaking time at the Intel (INTC) 2022 Innovation Forum to demonstrate a prototype of a slideable laptop that the company is developing that expands from a 13” tablet to a 17” laptop (see Figure 1 & link below). Similar to smaller smartphone sized expandable/rollable prototypes, this device allows the user to pull the side frame to extend the tablet to laptop size, with the extended portion of the display being coiled internally until expanded. When released the extended frame slides back to the smaller size and the additional display is then re-rolled internally.
While the SDC CEO ‘announced’ the device, no date for its release was given, which keeps it in the same category as the S-Folding displays (see Figure 2) that SDC has shown in recent months, that of ‘potential products’ that SDC and partners or affiliates are developing to exploit SDC’s foldable OLED display prowess. We expect that SDC’s parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) will release at least one ‘advanced’ foldable/rollable model in 2023, and given the company’s massive media blitz promoting the most recent Galaxy Z Flip and Z Fold smartphones, there will be considerable customer interest in such as the category develops and refinements to the technology continue as we get closer to the reality of a truly rollable display configuration, as we show in Figure 3, a dream device (our favorite) that Universal Display (OLED) burned into our minds years ago to promote OLED technology.
Samsung Display has been the leader in the flexible display market since its initial release of the Galaxy Round in 2013 and the Galaxy Note Edge in 2014, the first commercial flexible OLED products[1], and continues to hold that lead, with China’s BOE (200725.CH) the only sizable contender albeit with a 9.2% share vs. SDC’s 71.2% in 2Q. As the small panel OLED display market continues to mature, display producers struggle to differentiate their products to void the inevitable price degradation that occurs in the display space.
By developing new small panel OLED display formats, such as those noted above, Samsung has been able to stay a step ahead of the pack, both on the production side with SDC, and on the product side with its successful Z Fold series of foldable smartphones. That said, now that the public has been informed and likely convinced that foldable displays are smartphone fans’ new toy, there will be considerable momentum for foldable displays going forward, however that comes with the same caveats as any other feature that appears in consumer related devices, and that is practicality. While foldable displays represent a significant leap in display technology, unless such displays serve a practical purpose, they will become ‘just another feature’, like multiple cameras, rapid chargers, or borderless displays, that consumers will assume they get for free after the initial excitement dies down. If Samsung and other brands are able to come up with foldable/rollable devices that actually benefit consumers, the technology will have an extended lifetime and appeal, otherwise it will disappear into the world of generic display technology.

[1] Other brands have shown earlier prototypes of flexible OLED displays or devices, some based on e-paper or polymer materials, but we still consider Samsung’s ability for high volume flexible OLED mass production for the Note Edge to be the actual start of the ‘flexible OLED Age’.