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Korean[新着] 2025年のFPD業界を予測する～注目ポイント10選 ※全文和訳中
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冒頭部和訳
年頭にあたり、今年も今後1年間の業界予測を提示していこう。2019年から毎年行っているものだ。
1. TV用LCD価格が上昇する
Counterpoint ResearchのTV用LCD価格指数は、供給不足と供給過剰を含む「クリスタルサイクル」を明らかにするもので、FPD業界の健全性を示す最も重要な指標のひとつである。
10 Predictions for the Display Industry in 2025
As we have done each year since 2019, we have some predictions for the year.
#1: LCD TV Panel Prices Will Increase
Counterpoint Research’s price index for LCD TV panels serves as perhaps the most important dashboard indicator of the health of the flat panel display industry as it illuminates the Crystal Cycle of shortage and oversupply.
In the wake of the pandemic, panel prices crashed as shortage turned to oversupply and prices reached an all-time low in September 2022 with panel makers selling below cash costs to raise cash by selling off inventory. Prices increased by a double-digit % in Q2 2023 and Q3 2023 but have been remarkably stable since Q4 2023 with small increases and decreases for five quarters. Further, prices had an unprecedented streak of no change from September to November 2024 as LCD makers, concentrated in China, throttled back utilization to match demand.
LCD TV Panel Price Index, 2015-2025
During this period of price stability, the supply-demand situation has gradually improved in favor of panel makers. The industry’s LCD capacity has been reduced by fab closures, most prominently the closure of Sharp’s Sakai City Gen 10 fab. At the same time, TV area demand has increased with the increase in screen size, a trend that continued to be strong in 2024 with triple-digit % growth in ultra-large (85” and larger) LCD TVs aggressively promoted by the major Chinese brands.
The combination of reduced supply and increased demand has pushed the industry from oversupply to balance, and we expect there will be at least one season during the year, and maybe more than one, where TV prices will increase. This prediction might be proven quickly in 2025, as our current outlook is for prices to increase in the first quarter.
#2: No OLED Products with Phosphorescent Blue Emitters Will be Sold
We made this prediction for 2024 and, based on our understanding, we think it will hold true for 2025 as well.
OLED fans have been waiting for more than 10 years for an improved blue OLED emitter, but they are going to have to wait at least one more year to see products with phosphorescent blue emitters.
An efficient blue OLED emitter would be a tremendous boost to the whole OLED industry and especially to the company that develops it. Universal Display Corporation’s (UDC’s) red and green emitter materials allow excellent color and lifetime with high efficiency because phosphorescence allows 100% internal quantum efficiency, whereas the predecessor technology, fluorescence, only allows 25% internal quantum efficiency. A more efficient blue would bring cost and performance benefits to all of the various product architectures in the OLED space. In mobile RGB OLED, UDC projects that displays with phosphorescent blue emitters will achieve a 24% reduction in power consumption compared to 2023 displays.
UDC has worked for years on developing a phosphorescent blue emitter. In February 2022, the company finally announced that it expected to meet commercial target specs by the end of that year and start selling phosphorescent blue emitter materials in 2024. Through mid-2024, UDC held to that timetable but then stated that commercialization had been delayed by “a few months”.
Our sources suggest that phosphorescent blue continues to fail life test requirements for commercial products. According to the latest information, phosphorescent blue emitters have only a 40%-50% lifespan compared to mass-production materials. It is possible that the first introduction of phosphorescent blue will be in a tandem structure, paired with fluorescent emitter materials.
Whenever it comes, the introduction of phosphorescent blue will give OLED technology a boost in its battle with LCD. We believe that displays with these phosphorescent blue emitters will eventually hit the market, just not in 2025.
#3: We Will See More FPD Capacity Expansion in India
We were wrong with this prediction in 2024, but the logic of FPD production in India is stronger than ever, so we repeat the prediction in 2025. The result may not be known with certainty by the end of 2025, so effectively this is a prediction about a prediction (or about a forecast if you prefer).
At several points during the first two decades of the 21st century, there were discussions about building flat panel display fabs in India. Most recently, Vedanta has emerged as the champion of FPD in India. Vedanta already participates in the FPD industry with its ownership of glassmaker Avanstrate which it bought in 2017. The Indian conglomerate also signed a technology licensing agreement with Innolux in early 2023. A year ago, we expected that Vedanta would start mass production of a Gen 8.5 a-Si LCD fab in 2026, but in our current outlook that has been pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2027.
In our latest outlook on FPD capacity, we expect Vedanta’s capacity in 2028 will be 4.2 million square meters, just a bit less than 1% of total industry capacity. We predict that more expansions will be announced and planned in 2025 so that by the end of 2025 our capacity model will show more than 4.2 million square meters of capacity by 2029.
The list of reasons that flat panel display production in India makes sense is even more compelling today than it was a year ago:
- The Indian government has announced a major subsidy program for semiconductors and flat panel displays. The central government will subsidize 50% of the investment in approved FPD capacity, and as much as 20% subsidy may be available from state and local governments.
- Geopolitical relations between the US and China have deteriorated substantially. Although the Biden administration was hardly friendly to China, the incoming Trump administration is likely to be even more antagonistic.
- China dominates the FPD industry, especially in LCD. In 2016, China represented only 30% of worldwide LCD capacity, but by 2025 the country will have 73% of worldwide FPD capacity and 76% of worldwide LCD capacity.
- While economic growth in China has slowed, India has the fastest-growing economy in the 2020s.
- While the population of China has peaked and is falling, India’s young population continues to grow, and it is now the world’s most populous country.
- The domestic TV market in India is the third largest country market in the world after China and the US, but unlike China and the US, the Indian market is continuing to grow. We estimate India’s TV market will grow to 30 million units in 2030 with additional growth thereafter. China’s TV market peaked in 2018 at 59 million units.
Unlike most countries, India has an economy and a market large enough to support a substantial display industry. We estimate the end-market demand for display products across all applications in India to be 16 million square meters in 2024, able to fill almost four fabs the size of Vedanta’s plans. Furthermore, while we expect worldwide FPD demand to grow slowly, we expect FPD demand in India to grow at a double-digit % throughout our forecast horizon.
#4: MiniLED Shipments Will Increase by a Double-digit % in TVs and Monitors and by a Triple-digit % in Autos
In the technology battle between MiniLED and OLED at the top end of large-screen display applications, MiniLED came out favorably in 2024 and we expect that momentum to continue in 2025. In the TV market, according to Counterpoint Research’s Quarterly Advanced TV Shipment and Forecast Report, MiniLED shipments increased by 74% YoY in the first three quarters of 2024 even though Samsung MiniLED TV shipments decreased by 19% YoY. The gap was filled by Chinese brands TCL, Hisense and Xiaomi, which aggressively promoted MiniLED in both their home market and for exports.
TCL was the pioneer of MiniLED technology, launching its first TV product in 2019. However, when Samsung launched MiniLED TVs in 2021, the brand quickly surged to take the #1 spot. In 2024, as Samsung shipments slumped, it fell to the #3 spot behind TCL and Hisense, with the latter brand claiming the #1 spot in Q3 2024. The MiniLED LCD TV landscape has become more varied, with 13 brands represented and 5 brands shipping more than 100,000 units in the latest quarter. For 2025, we expect MiniLED TV shipments to increase by 17% to 7.5 million units.
MiniLEDs in monitors are an even more competitive market, with at least 21 brands with products on the market and the top brand, AOC, capturing only 16% share. We expect that to continue because barriers to entry to the MiniLED monitor market are low to non-existent. We expect MiniLED monitor shipments to increase by 40% YoY in 2025 to 5.2 million units.
Many automakers have favored MiniLED over OLED because they have concerns about the latter technology’s lifetime performance. We have seen a number of autos with large MiniLED displays released in 2024, including the Cadillac XT4 and CELECTIQ and the Krypton ZEEKR 009 Glow. Many panel makers are competing for this business, and shipments for auto displays are expected to increase from 4.5 million in 2024 to more than 10 million in 2025.
#5 Trump Tariffs will Dent Demand and Scramble Display Supply Chain
One of the biggest uncertainties for the display industry, and for many other industries, in 2025 involves whether and how soon-to-be President Trump will follow up on campaign promises to implement tariffs on US trading partners. During the 2024 election campaign, Trump promised to put a 60% tariff on imports from China, and after the election, Trump posted on his Truth Social account that on his first day in office, he would slap a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada, and a 10% tariff on imports from China, citing immigration and fentanyl trafficking as national security concerns.
Many analysts believe that Trump’s statements are merely opening lines toward a negotiation of more favorable trade terms. The USMCA free trade agreement which was signed by Trump in 2018 comes up for review in 2026, and he is expected to demand changes. Analysts note that Trump also made bold claims about tariffs in his 2016 election campaign, most of which did not materialize.
One area where the tariffs did materialize was against China. In his first term, Trump implemented tariffs on $150 billion of imports from China, which included TVs but not monitors, laptop PCs or smartphones. The tariffs were implemented under a “Section 301” trade clause after an investigation concluded that China was guilty of discriminatory trade practices.
The initial tariff of 15% on TVs was cut in half after Trump announced a “historic” trade deal with Chinese President Xi in January 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting. Under that deal, China should have purchased an additional $200 billion in US exports by the end of 2021. Although the disruption of the pandemic was certainly a factor, in the end, those increased exports never materialized. The US trade deficit with China, the number most important to Trump, has declined from an all-time high of $418 billion in 2018 to $279 billion in 2023, but mostly because of reduced imports.
If Trump does follow through in 2025 in implementing tariffs on imports from China or Mexico, it will certainly affect the display industry. As shown in the table below, those two countries account for 80% of the value of imports of end-market products with displays.
US Imports of Display End Products in 2023
The precise impact of a tariff will depend on how it is implemented and how the affected governments and industry players react. We expect that the impact will involve some combination of factors including:
- Price increases in the US for display end products
- A reduction in US demand due to the price increases
- Reduced profits for device makers and retailers in the US due to squeezed margins and reduced demand
- Lower prices for displays, as manufacturers try to push the tariff penalties to suppliers
- A shift in the assembly of end products to countries not affected (like Vietnam and Malaysia)
The most recent statements by Trump promised that tariffs would be implemented on his first day in office, so we may know which tariffs are coming by the end of this month.
#6 Intellectual Property Lawsuits will Constrain Display Suppliers
On top of the threat of tariffs, another front in the US-China trade war involves lawsuits over intellectual property (IP) rights. Two of these cases may result in substantial barriers for certain suppliers in the display industry.
One of these cases is described in a separate article in this newsletter. US glassmaker Corning has petitioned the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban imports of products made with display glass from Irico, a Chinese glassmaker that Corning says has used stolen trade secrets and infringed on multiple Corning patents. The ITC is expected to initiate an investigation of the case in early 2025.
Another case dates back several years and is much further advanced. In November 2024, the US ITC concluded its investigation regarding Samsung’s claim that BOE had infringed on several patents in its OLED displays. The presiding administrative law judge (ALJ) issued an Initial Determination on Violation of Section 337 as part of the investigation. The ALJ also issued a “Recommended Determination” on remedy and bonding should a violation ultimately be found in this investigation. The ALJ also issued a solicitation for submissions on public interest issues raised by the recommended relief should the commission find a violation.
In a related move, the Chairman of the US House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, John Moolenaar, wrote to the US ITC, urging it to follow through on a ruling and bar BOE Technology Group from importing products to the US. In September, Moolenaar had asked the Pentagon to list BOE as a Chinese military company.
In a December letter to ITC Chair Rhonda Schmidtlein, Moolenaar wrote, “If the commission declines to ban imports of BOE’s displays — which has been clearly implicated in infringing on US patents — BOE’s IP theft will continue to benefit the PRC’s military-civil fusion strategy, and BOE’s growing dominance in the display industry will leave the US overly reliant on the PRC for an advanced technology critical to military applications. Additionally, the commission will be sending a dangerous message to the PRC that its companies can continue to steal American IP at will.”
A third case was initiated in November 2024 concerning alleged infringement by TCL regarding patents held by Maxell of Kyoto, Japan. The ITC initiated an investigation in the case which involves four patents related to smart TV operation and communication.
Any of these cases could result in import bans on products found to be infringing on patents, and any such import ban would significantly affect both the suppliers and the customers in the display supply chain. Given the political environment in Washington with the incoming Trump administration, we can expect that the Chinese defendants in these three cases will not have a sympathetic reception if they attempt to dispute the allegations.
#7 Samsung will Release Smart AR Glasses but Volumes will be Small
The biggest news in the AR/VR device market in 2024 was Apple’s introduction of its Vision Pro headset. The reception to that device is nicely encapsulated by the title of a Forbes article, “Apple’s Vision Pro Is Amazing But Nobody Wants One”. The device got great reviews but sales were disappointing.
Given that Apple could not rejuvenate the Mixed Reality headset market, all eyes are now on the less cumbersome smart glasses. Although the product does not include a display, perhaps the most successful pair of smart glasses came from Meta’s collaboration with Ray-Ban for the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. While the lack of a display limited the functionality of the product, its elegant design made it easier to wear, as Meta’s VP of wearables, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, noted: “There’s an analogy — an escalator doesn’t break. It becomes stairs. When these run out of battery, they’re still a beautiful-looking pair of glasses.”
We expect that Meta will follow by launching AR (i.e. with a display) smart glasses in 2025. They will not be the same as the advanced Orion glasses it demonstrated in September and will probably be based on LCoS.
In 2025, we expect Samsung to jump into the ring with a set of AR glasses. Samsung has already announced a Mixed Reality headset powered by Google's new Android XR operating system. However, this device was designed as a response to the Apple Vision Pro and could quickly meet the same fate. Samsung may focus its efforts on smart glasses that can compete head-to-head with Meta's. They will likely be running Android XR, which will give them access to Google's AI assistant. We think that the volume for Samsung’s smart glasses is unlikely to exceed 200,000 units, but this might be considered a success for a first-generation product.
#8 Foldable Phones will Remain Stuck in a Niche Market with No Growth
The great promise of OLED displays made on plastic substrates has been that they will allow innovations in form factor. The transition from glass substrates to polyimide substrates allows displays to bend into shapes that glass can’t manage, and Samsung has taken the lead in bringing this promise to the smartphone in the form of its foldable phones, the Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip series.
Samsung has progressed through six generations of foldable phones, and we expect a seventh generation to be launched in 2025. The successive generations have mostly resolved some of the problems with the earliest designs, including more robust hinge designs and removing the “crease” in the fold. Other brands including OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi have introduced foldable phone designs, but the most significant competitor to Samsung in the foldable space is Huawei, whose Mate X6 and Pocket 3 foldables drove Huawei’s share of the foldable segment from 18% in 2023 to 33% in 2024.
From their first introduction in late 2018, foldable smartphones posted strong growth in every year up through 2023, but that growth stalled in 2024 and the outlook for 2025 looks even worse. Counterpoint Research now believes the foldable smartphone display market increased only 5% in 2024 and will fall by 4% in 2025. Demand has stalled at around 22 million panels, which is only about 1.5% of the smartphone market in unit terms.
Samsung is seeing slower-than-expected adoption of its Galaxy Z Flip 6 clamshell smartphone as well as older foldables. Panel shipments for the Z Flip 6 in 2024 are expected to be more than 10% below the Z Flip 5 panel shipments in 2023. Demand remains highly concentrated in South Korea and Europe and this product has struggled to gain adoption in the US and China. Huawei also pulled back on panel procurement in the second half of 2024; the Chinese brand has been hurt by the restrictions on importing the most advanced processors in China, which gives it a disadvantage in the premium smartphone market.
Foldable Smartphone Panel Shipments
The great hope for the foldable smartphone category lies with Apple, but Apple is not expected to launch a foldable phone until 2026 at the earliest. Meanwhile, we expect Huawei to introduce fewer models in 2025 and expect other brands to pull back on legacy models. We expect to see 32 different models shipping in 2025 vs. 41 in 2024. So while we may see another surge of growth in foldable phones in the latter part of the decade, in 2025 the category will remain a niche inside the larger smartphone market.
#9 New LCD Capacity will be Planned
In both 2023 and 2024, we predicted that LCD capacity would be shut down, and we were right both times. So, it may seem odd that we are predicting some new capacity for 2025, but given the rebalancing of supply and demand for LCD, it makes sense that someone will start to plan capacity expansion this year.
As shown in the chart here, the total industry LCD capacity has gone through two years of decline while demand has increased. The industry oversupply was severe in 2022 with only 76% utilization, but that improved to 79% in 2023 and 81% in 2024. In our outlook, we expect LCD capacity growth of less than 1% in 2025 and demand growth of about 5% driven mostly by increasing screen size for LCD TVs. That will bring full-year utilization up to a relatively healthy 85%.
LCD Supply/Demand and Fab Utilization
As we explained in our prediction #1 for this year, we expect LCD TV panel prices to increase, which should improve the profitability of TV panel makers. While we think it is unrealistic to expect bumper profits this year, the pattern of improvement in utilizations will be clear to industry players. There is minimal LCD capacity expansion in the pipeline; we expect capacity growth of less than 1% in 2025, less than 3% in 2026 and only 2% in 2027. As a result, with the current outlook, industry utilization would increase to 88% in 2028, which matches the UT% of 2021, the most profitable year in the history of the industry.
We think one or more LCD players will recognize the trends and get ahead of the curve by planning new expansions. This might come from the Chinese heavyweights BOE and CSOT as the two companies battle for the #1 position in capacity, or it might come from a new entrant in India as described in prediction #5.
#10 Samsung Display will Discontinue Production of QD-OLED Panels
Among the 10 predictions, this one is least likely to come to pass. But after hearing a few rumors about it in the past weeks, we decided to go with it.
In one aspect, Samsung’s development and production of QD-OLED panels for TVs and monitors has been a raging success. The TV sets using these panels sold by Samsung and Sony brands have received abundant critical praise and many awards. In the annual TV Shootout held by Value Electronics in the US, Sony’s A95L QD-OLED TV won four of the six categories, and Samsung’s S95D QD-OLED TV won the other two categories.
The introduction of QD-OLED TV panels gave Samsung Display bragging rights against its crosstown rival LG Displays. Prior to the introduction of QD-OLED TVs in 2022, LGD’s white OLED panels consistently won awards for the best TV picture, but since 2022, LGD has taken a back seat to SDC.
However, in another very important aspect, the QD-OLED panels have been an abject failure. The business of QD-OLED has never turned a profit, and in fact has never come close. While Samsung’s smaller-screen OLED business has maintained healthy profits for years, the bottom line of Samsung Display has been badly bruised by losses in its large-screen QD-OLED business. In 2023, the QD-OLED business racked up losses of KRW 1.08 trillion ($828 million) on revenues of KRW 1.1 trillion, for an operating margin of -99%. In the first three quarters of 2024, the QD-OLED business booked another KRW 522 billion ($387 million) in losses on revenues of KRW 1.08 trillion, for an operating margin of -36%.
While other companies might try to justify the poor results of a flagship business, historically Samsung has been pretty hard-headed with the principle that it is in business to make a profit. With no realistic prospect of achieving profitability, we predict that Samsung will cut the cord on its QD-OLED business in 2025.
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