AMOLED revenues up 327pc Y/Y in Q208

AMOLEDs/Displays

AMOLED revenues up 327pc Y/Y in Q2'08

However, it is down 27pc Q/Q as Samsung SDI's AMOLED shipments drop 22pc Q/Q, says DisplaySearch

Friday, September 26, 2008

AUSTIN, USA: According to DisplaySearch, Samsung SDI, the leading supplier of AMOLED displays, had lower than expected shipments in Q2’08, which set a negative tone for the quarter. Instead of growing volume by a forecasted 12 percent, their shipments actually contracted by 22 percent due to slowing demand from Japanese mobile phone suppliers and from Nokia.

As a result, overall AMOLED revenue was US$53.8M down 27 percent Q/Q but up 327 percent Y/Y, and shipments were 1.7M down 18 percent Q/Q, but up 302 percent Y/Y. The Y/Y comparisons are misleading since Samsung SDI started mass production of AMOLEDs in Q4’07.

Surprisingly, PMOLED shipments were 20.3M, up 17 percentQ/Q and 4 percent Y/Y. PMOLED shipments had been down Y/Y for three straight quarters. The growth was driven by increases in both MP3 players and sub-displays. PMOLEDs now represent almost 60 percent of the total MP3 market and 23 percent of all sub-display shipments.

Other key findings in the Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report released by DisplaySearch include:

* RiTdisplay had a record quarter with revenues of US$33.8M.
* Pioneer maintained its shipment volume of 4.4M, most of which were monochrome displays.
* Chi Mei EL (CMEL) also reported AMOLED revenues of only US$7.6M, down from US$12.8M last quarter.
* Main display shipments, which were expected to drive the growth in OLED displays, were 1.6M down 500K or 33 percent, due to the poor performance by Samsung SDI.

The slowdown in AMOLED displays is expected to continue in Q3’08, because it is taking longer for mobile phone makers to understand the market for products with high-end displays. However, new products by Nokia and Sony Ericsson could improve the situation, as will the recent announcement by CMEL and Kodak on the release of a new 7.6” display for digital photo frames.

Sub-displays and MP3 player displays accounted for over 80% of OLED shipments at 14.2M and 3.4M, respectively. Of the remaining applications, industrial applications showed strong growth, but main displays fell for the third straight quarter as indicated in Table 1: