OLED Panel Revenues Surging to All Time High in Q4 2020

Ann Arbor, MI USA -

OLED panel revenues will increase by 49% sequentially to an all-time high of almost $12 billion in the 4^th quarter of 2020, according to the latest update of the DSCC Quarterly OLED Shipment Report for Q4 2020, as increased panel shipments for smartphones are joined with revenue growth in TVs, smartwatches and other applications.

The Q4 update of this report gives the Q3 2020 actual shipments, plus DSCC’s updated estimates for Q4 2020 and our forecast for 2021-2025 for eleven different applications for OLED panels, with detailed figures for units, revenue, area, average selling price (ASP), and other parameters with splits by application, panel supplier, substrate (rigid/flexible/foldable) and brand. The report also provides a quarterly forecast for 2021 with the same detail. In this article, we will cover the actual results from Q3 and our estimates for Q4 and the full year 2020, and another article next week will cover the long-term forecast. Subscribers to the report, of course, can see all the results in the Excel file.

Like many other things in the electronics industry, the Q3 2020 and Q4 2020 numbers have been affected by the timing of Apple’s iPhone 12 model releases which were all OLED for the first time. Q4’20 also benefited from the pull-in of the Samsung S21 series by a month with panel shipments starting in November rather than December. The later Apple release dates depressed OLED panel shipment sales in Q3 and accelerated sales in Q4. OLED panel revenues in Q3 2020 totaled $8.0 billion, down 3.3% Y/Y, while our estimate for Q4 2020 shows revenues at $11.9 billion, up 46% compared to Q4 2019.

The pattern of OLED panel revenues is heavily weighted by smartphones, by far the largest application by revenues for OLED technology as shown in the next chart. OLED smartphone revenues were down 9% Y/Y in Q3 2020 with the iPhone launch delay, and are expected to be up 51% Y/Y in Q4 2020 to $9.8 billion.

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