Category Archives: OLEDs

Demand for flexible displays is set to undergo massive growth during the next seven years, with a broad variety of applications—ranging from smartphones to giant screens mounted on buildings—driving a nearly 250 times expansion in shipments from 2013 through 2020.

Global shipments of flexible displays are projected to soar to 792 million units in 2020, up from 3.2 million in 2013, according to a new IHS report entitled “Flexible Display Technology and Market Forecast.”  Market revenue will rise to $41.3 billion, up from just $100,000 during the same period.

“Flexible displays hold enormous potential, creating whole new classes of products and enabling exciting new applications that were impractical or impossible before,” said Vinita Jakhanwal, director for mobile and emerging displays and technology at IHS. “From smartphones with displays that curve around the sides, to smart watches with wraparound screens, to tablets and PCs with roll-out displays, to giant video advertisements on curved building walls, the potential uses for flexible displays will be limited only by the imagination of designers.”

Generation flex

IHS classifies flexible displays into four generations of technology. The first generation is the durable display panels that are now entering the market. These panels employ a flexible substrate to attain superior thinness and unbreakable ruggedness. However, these displays are flat and cannot be bent or rolled.

Second-generation flexible displays are bendable and conformable, and can be molded to curved surfaces, maximizing space on small form-factor products like smartphones.

The third generation consists of truly flexible and rollable displays that can be manipulated by end users. These displays will enable a new generation of devices that save space and blur the lines separating traditional product categories, such as smartphones and media tablets.

The fourth generation consists of disposable displays that cost so little that they can serve as a replacement for paper.

Starting small

With their thin, light and unbreakable nature, flexible displays initially are expected to be used in smaller-sized products, such as mobile phones and MP3 players. However, once large-size displays are available, flexible technology will be used in bigger screen-size platforms, such as laptops, monitors and televisions.

The largest application for flexible displays during the next several years will be personal electronic devices. This segment will be led by smartphones, with shipments climbing to 351 million units by 2020, up from less than 2 million this year.

Flexible stars at SID

Flexible displays were a major topic at the Society for Information Display (SID) Display Week event in Vancouver in May.

During an SID keynote address, Kinam Kim, president and CEO of Samsung Display Co., discussed his company’s flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology. Kim said that the technology will be suitable for wearable electronics devices like Google Glass.

Also at SID, LG Display showed a 5-inch OLED panel constructed out of plastic that was both flexible and unbreakable.

Furthermore, Corning at SID showed its Willow Glass, which can be used as with both OLEDs and liquid-crystal displays (LCD) in mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets and notebook PCs. Because of its thinness, strength and flexibility, Willow Glass could enable future displays to be wrapped around a device or a structure.

IHS predicts OLEDs will be the leading flexible display technology during every year for the foreseeable future, accounting for 64 percent of shipments in 2020.

Aledia today announced that solid-state lighting (SSL) industry veteran Dr. Bernhard Stapp has joined its board of directors.

Stapp brings more than a dozen years of executive experience in LED lighting technologies to Aledia, most recently in senior management positions at OSRAM.

As general manager and senior vice president of OSRAM AG’s SSL unit, Stapp was responsible for the company’s professional LED and OLED business. Earlier, as SSL vice president and general manager at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors, he launched and managed the general-lighting LED business and oversaw launch of the world’s first OLED lighting products. Prior to that, Stapp was vice president and CTO of the semiconductor company, where he oversaw global LED, laser and OLED R&D. Earlier in his career, he held a variety of management positions in Siemens AG’s Corporate Technology division.

“Aledia’s mission is to bring fundamental change to the world’s lighting markets by making LED technology substantially more affordable and more versatile, with better performance and fewer limitations,” said Giorgio Anania, Aledia’s co-founder, president and CEO. “Bernhard has been a key player at the heart of the global LED industry since its inception, and also has an outstanding technical background. His unique perspective on this industry’s future will be invaluable as Aledia moves into the next stage of its evolution.”

WireLED, Aledia’s 3D microwire GaN-on-silicon technology, was developed at the CEA-Leti nanotech research institute in Grenoble. It addresses the basic technical and economic challenges facing LED lighting by allowing production of LEDs on inexpensive industry-standard 200mm silicon wafers using standard semiconductor processes and tools.

The new report from IDTechEx titled "Printed, Organic & Flexible Electronics: Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2013-2023" finds that the total market for these technologies will grow from $16.04 billion in 2013 to $76.79 billion in 2023.

The sector includes profitable large sectors, the majority being OLEDs (organic but not printed) and conductive ink used for a wide range of applications. On the other hand, stretchable electronics, logic and memory, thin film sensors and other components are much smaller segments today, just emerging from R&D. A snapshot view of the technologies, development time, 2013 market size and general sector profitability and short term growth is shown below.

Source: IDTechEx report "Printed, Organic & Flexible Electronics: Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2013-2023" (www.IDTechEx.com/pe). Note that in some cases above the value of the film is included and not the module value – see the report for more detail.

Billion-dollar sale successes

So far, there have been three billion-dollar sales successes; OLEDs, e-paper and conductive ink. OLEDs are seeing continual adoption in cellphones and OLED TV sales have begun this year. IDTechEx see much movement in the display sector, as panel makers try and distance themselves from losses in the LCD industry, caused by new competition from China, and seek to differentiate. The landscape will change – with some East Asian countries potentially unable to afford extensive R&D in OLEDs such as Taiwan and new entrants, such as China. E-paper sales have declined as e-reader sales have declined. To reach that sales peak again new markets are being explored as is color, video capable bistable displays. IDTechEx found that the overall conductive ink market size is in decline this year as it was last year, due to less use in the photovoltaic market. However, thereafter the market will increase again as the PV sector shakes-out and other markets for conductive inks continue to grow.

Companies reposition for profitability

Some companies have survived ten years without making substantial sales or any profit. Some of these are now repositioning from trying to do something very difficult, such as replacing complete existing devices, to simpler things, allowing them to move to market more quickly. Few can keep going after ten years of minimal sales. Examples of new focus include finely printed patterns for transparent conductive films (a $1.8 billion opportunity), improving the performance of lithium batteries (a $25 billion market), enabling supercapacitors for vehicles and consumer electronics ($0.8 billion in 2013) and adding 3D touch surfaces to many things, as Ford has done for its overhead consoles in some cars.

Some systems development but much more to be done

A few vendors are building ecosystems to develop complete systems – bringing together key enabling components and creating complete working devices. Watch Thinfilm, PARC, PST, PragmatIC and Soligie amongst others. For equipment manufacturers, it is notable that NovaCentrix and Muhlbauer have come together to provide a turnkey solution for RFID tag manufacture using copper ink for the tag antennas – now the purchaser does not have to try and build the disparate systems themselves. Still, there is quite a way to go. For example, even simply creating hybrid devices – part printed, part conventional on the same substrate is proving a challenge to automate.

Broadening topic

The topic is broader than many people realize. There is strong interest in printed electronics enabling part of the Internet of Things vision; researchers are working on bringing together 3D printing with electronics; bioelectronics; touch surfaces everywhere and much more.

New research report from IDTechEx

The IDTechEx report "Printed, Organic & Flexible Electronics: Forecasts, Players & Opportunities 2013-2023" (www.IDTechEx.com/pe) provides detailed analysis of all these aspects, including ten year forecasts. Researched by multilingual IDTechEx consultants based in four countries and three continents, this report builds on ten years of knowledge of the industry.

Demand for 4-inch or larger AMOLED panels has continued to increase in the fourth quarter of 2012 thanks to strong growth in the market for high-end smartphones with large screens, such as the Galaxy S and Note series by Samsung Electronics, according to a recent report released by Displaybank. The larger size group made up 88 percent of total AMOLED panel shipments, which amounted to 41 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012: In detail, 4.x-inch panels accounted for 65.1 percent and 5.x-inch ones 22.8 percent.

In particular, shipments of 5.x-inch AMOLED panels hiked in the fourth quarter of 2012, expanding its market share for the third consecutive quarter, to 22.8 percent of the total. It is a rather rapid growth, considering that 5.3-inch AMOLED panel was first released in the third quarter of 2011, thanks to the popularity of larger-screen smartphones. This is in stark contrast to 3.x-inch AMOLED panels whose market share plunged to 11.6 percent in total shipments in the last quarter of 2012 from more than 60 percent in the first quarter of 2011. Along with the 4.x-inch sector, which takes the majority of total AMOLED shipments, 5.x-inch panels are expected to become the main display size group in the market.

By application, demand of AMOLED panels for mobile phones accounted of 96 percent of the total AMOLED panel shipments in the last quarter of 2012, up from 86 percent in the first quarter of the year. Mobile phones have contributed to the rapid growth of the market for AMOLED panels, but this caused concerns about the market’s too much dependence on one application. The trend also indicates how difficult for the AMOLED technology to enter the mid-to-large-sized panel market.

In recent years, TFT-LCD technology has dominated the display panel market, everything from small, medium and large screens, to the point where all other rival display technologies such as e-paper, PDP, and CRT have steadily been losing their positioning. Amidst this trend, only the AMOLED panel market, led by Samsung Display, emerged as the most formidable competitor to TFT-LCD, showing a steady and fast growth.

Several fast-moving panel manufacturers see the potential in the AMOLED panel business and are planning to enter this market in the near future. Despite such interest in the market, only a handful of companies, including Samsung Display, LG Display, and Sony, are successfully producing on a large scale.

This state can be attributed to several obstacles. The first is the higher degree of technical difficulty in producing AMOLED panels compared to TFT-LCDs. Even with successful AMOLED production, toppling TFT-LCDs from their current dominant position of performance and cost advantageousness is a daunting task. In addition, the market is trending toward bigger screens with higher resolutions, which make penetrating the competitive AMOLED market even harder because the late comers have to develop both standard and cutting-edge technologies at the same time.

As a result, AMOLED manufacturers will strive to penetrate the market with diverse strategic planning this year in order to overcome the various technological and competitive obstacles. More specifically, the majority of manufacturers already producing TFT-LCD panels are busy reckoning gains and losses of making AMOLED panels alongside and how they will be able to maximize profits with minimized investment. 

The paradigm shift of the small and medium-sized OLED manufacturing process and substrate process deserves attention in 2013. In the small and medium-sized OLED manufacturing process, open mask-applied WOLED structure is being widely attempted, since it is easy to implement even though the performance is inferior when compared to high precision deposition methods, such as traditional fine metal mask evaporation-applied RGB light-emitting structure, LITI, and ink jet printing. There is also an attempt to produce unbreakable AMOLED panels with a goal to replace flatbed glass used for substrate and encapsulation layer with plastic and thin-film coating, respectively. If realized, the emergence of such an unbreakable AMOLED screen should stand as a groundbreaking innovation for the display panel market as a whole along with the related technology applications sector.

Displaybank has researched the issues and strategies for each and every player in the AMOLED market and published its timely report “AMOLED Panel Makers’ Business Strategy and Market Forecast” in order for the companies to safely navigate through obstacles. The report should offer firms insight into penetrating the competitive AMOLED panel market with helpful and individualized strategies.

OLED lighting developments are taking place worldwide, with a lot of the research focused on phosphorescent OLED materials, which have a theoretical luminous efficacy four times higher than fluorescent materials. Last month, Konica Minolta unveiled its new flexible OLED lighting panels at the Lighting Fair 2013 exhibition in Tokyo. The company has developed its own blue phosphorescent materials, enabling it to commercialize the world’s first OLED panels using only phosphorescent materials.

Dual approach in OLED lighting development

Interestingly, Konica Minolta is following two paths in its development of OLED lighting. Alongside its developments of an all phosphorescent OLED panel, for which the company achieved world record performance back in 2007, the company is employing its expertise in R2R processing and is looking to develop high performing, solution-processable materials that will enable not just optimum performance but also high productivity. To that end, the company showcased fully solution processed OLED lighting panels back in 2010.

What has always been a limitation with solution processed OLEDs though is their performance characteristics, as their external quantum efficiency and lifetime have always been inferior to those of vacuum deposited OLEDs.

Konica Minolta has made strides towards bridging that gap recently, showcasing last year high performing solution processed polymer OLEDs, with performance metrics very similar to those of vacuum deposited materials, as can be seen in the graph below.

flexible OLED lighting
Comparison of external quantum efficiency and lifetime of evaporated and solution processed OLEDs at Konica Minolta. Source: Konica Minolta

Barrier layer developments

As if for completion, purposes, Konica Minolta is employing its knowhow in simultaneous deposition of multilayer coatings, vacuum deposition and dry coating and surface modification in atmospheric pressures to develop barrier layers. The company will be presenting its advances in lighting and flexible barrier layers in the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Asia event in Tokyo in July 2013.

Alongside the developments of multilayer barriers, there’s increased activity in the development of flexible glass. Asahi Glass, alongside other companies such as Schott and Corning and NEG have demonstrated thin glass at thicknesses that allow it to be flexible. It’s important to point out though that Asahi Glass has come up with an easier way to handle the super-thin (0.1 mm) glass that is increasingly being considered for use in flexible displays. The technique uses an adsorption layer to temporarily attach the 0.1-mm-thick sheet to a 0.5-mm-thick sheet of carrier glass, which is much easier to handle during fabrication of devices.

flexible glass
Asahi Glass: Flexible glass 100microns thick, rolled in a coil.

It’s important to note though that Asahi Glass doesn’t just develop glass, but is also actively developing conductive copper nanoparticle inks, alongside other major companies such as Hitachi Chemical, Intrinsiq and many more.

Cambrios Technologies Corporation, a developer of nanowire-based solutions for the transparent and flexible conductor markets, today announced the establishment of its branch office in Tokyo, Japan, and the appointment of Takashi Murayama as Country Manager for Japan.

"We are seeing growth opportunities in Japan and are already shipping from our ClearOhmTM product line," said John LeMoncheck, Cambrios’ president and CEO. "Our newly created Japan office will support customers using our cost efficient transparent conductors in applications such as All-In-One computers and other touch screen enabled devices."

To oversee sales and distribution of Cambrios’ products in Japan, the company has named Takashi Murayama as its Country Manager. Prior to joining Cambrios, Murayama worked as country manager for various leading companies in the microprocessor, communications and nanotechnology industries, including Transmeta, Conexant Systems, Beceem Communications and Unidym. He also spent 19 years in sales and marketing management roles with Intel Japan. Murayama holds a Bachelors of Science degree in electrical engineering from Kagoshima University in Kagoshima, Japan.

Cambrios is known for its first product, its ClearOhm coating material, which produces a transparent, conductive film by wet processing with significantly higher optical and electrical performance than currently used materials such as indium tin oxide. Applications of ClearOhm coating material include transparent electrodes for touch screens, EMI shielding, OLED displays, e-paper, OLED lighting and thin film photovoltaics.

U.S. television shipments are forecast to decline for a second year in a row in 2013, but growth will resume next year as the liquid crystal display television (LCD TV) segment regains some of the strength it had lost in the past year.

Shipments in 2013 of televisions into the U.S. market will amount to a projected 36.6 million units, compared to 37.6 million last year, according to an IHS iSuppli U.S. Television Market Tracker Report from information and analytics provider IHS. The anticipated 2.7 percent contraction will be smaller than the 5.8 percent slide suffered by the industry in 2012 when domestic TV shipments retreated from 39.9 million units in 2011. However, it will mean that shipments will have declined for two straight years by the time 2013 is over.

Despite the current negative picture, the industry is poised to see expansion return next year as shipments tick up to 37.8 million units, marking the beginning of at least a four-year run of steady growth, as shown in the below figure.

US TV market

“U.S. television demand is being hit by the double whammy of the plunge in both the plasma and LCD TV segments,” said Veronica Thayer, analyst for consumer electronics & technology at IHS. “After peaking in 2010, plasma sales now are on a terminal decline. Meanwhile, the mature U.S. LCD TV market contracted in 2012 as most consumers already own one or more sets.”

Plasma TV shipments last year shrank a steep 24 percent to 3.6 million units compared to their 2011 level, and LCD TV shipments descended 3 percent to 33.8 million units.

But while plasma shipments will continue to be down this year as part of an irreversible trend toward extinction, LCD TV shipments will be up 3 percent, reversing the losses of last year and coming close to the segment’s 2011 shipment level. LCD TV shipments will grow another 6 percent next year, pulling the overall U.S. TV space out of its slump.

Meanwhile, the introduction of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) televisions will start to work its magic on the industry, especially because the advanced sets will sport perfect black colors and much thinner profiles than already slim-based LED-backlit sets. South Korea’s LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics will lob the first volleys in the first half of 2013 by each launching 55-inch models—first previewed in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and vastly different from the tiny 11- and 15-inch OLED TVs shown several years ago.

A total of just 56,000 OLED TVs will ship cumulatively in 2013 and 2014, with sets commanding extremely high retail pricing because of a lack of large-scale manufacturing. But shipment numbers will grow quickly from 2014 onward, jumping to 370,000 by 2015, and then surging to 1.9 million units by 2017. Revenue from OLED TVs could reach as much as 21 percent of the total TV market revenue for that year.

Owing to the high retail price of OLED TVs, this display type will account for a larger percentage of revenue compared to shipments in the total U.S. TV market.

LCD panel makers in Taiwan, Japan and Korea have been suffering. Despite the growing demand for LCDs the high number of panel makers and new competition from China has resulted in tough price competition for panel makers, to the point that many panel makers are no longer profitable. In 2012, Samsung Electronics moved their LCD business units into a separate entity. One report suggests that the Taiwanese have invested $60 billion in the LCD industry and seen a return of just $40 billion. Some Japanese makers, despite having superb technology, have seen recent losses in some cases equal cumulative profits of the preceeding five to ten years. Restructuring is, therefore, afoot. In the last few weeks, Samsung purchased a three percent stake in Sharp. Japan Display Inc (JDI), puts together small and mid-sized LCD panel manufacture units from Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba, focusing on automotive, cellphone and digital camera displays (not TV). Meanwhile, the Chinese are quickly moving into LCD panel production. For many years the top five in the LCD business, in order, were Samsung, LG Display, Innolux, AUO and Sharp. Now, as evidence of China’s progress, in late 2012 Chinese BOE is No. 5 for notebooks and monitors and China Star (CSOT) No. 5 for TVs.

 All this has driven panel makers to seek differentiation. 3D capability was one – albeit with mixed consumer interest. Now, the hot topics are OLED and high resolution LCDs (4K).

OLED TVs pose a tough manufacturing challenge, but then the winners will be the ones to address the tough options. The current approach being taken by some of the leading panel makers are as follows, but the situation is fluid.

  • Samsung = RGB and polysilicon TFT backplane – recently announced it is reviewing other options
  • LG = white OLED with colour filters and IGZO TFT backplane
  • Panasonic = Inkjet printed RGB with CDT/Sumitomo materials + AUO TFT substrate
  • Sony = RGB Top emission and gap filters + AUO TFT substrate

The different approaches mean little cross fertilization of know-how or equipment. Certainly the Koreans have appeared to be a long way ahead, at least for smaller sized OLED displays, but for TVs perhaps not as far as one thought. The question is whether Panasonic or Sony have the appetite to make the large investments needed. Investments from Samsung and LG are as follows:

  • Samsung invested $4.8 billion in 2011, $6 billion in 2012, and will invest $4 billion in 2013. It has sold more than 100 million OLED displays used in the Galaxy S series alone
  • LG invested $225 million in 2010, planned investment of approx. $2.8 billion in 2012, of that $1.9 billion in R&D related to OLED.
  • The first OLED TVs are available from LG now – albeit priced at ~ $10,000. Sales will be limited at this price point for the immediate years.

The technically easier differentiation is to move to higher resolution LCD TV – e.g. 4K. Film makers are adopting suitable resolution cameras and so content will be available. Critics say that most cannot see the difference, but in reality consumers like to future proof as they expect a TV to last for many years – many bought HD TVs but still do not watch HD content. The higher resolution will benefit PC monitors and console gaming experiences too. In the short term, therefore, IDTechEx Research expects that 4K LCD TV sales – which will be more readably available – will sell more units than OLED TV.

OLED TV is undoubtedly promising but, as OLEDs for smaller sized displays – it will take longer than originally thought for these to become dominant, given the technical challenges faced. Given that many LCD makers are losing money, how will they fund investment in new innovation? Indeed, Taiwanese companies are asking the government now for financial help to fund R&D on OLEDs.

Those hoping that OLED TVs would result in new factories and new equipment orders may find the opportunities are not quite as big as they had hoped – with companies expected to repurpose existing aSi TFT plants to IGZO TFT manufacture. This looks good on paper, but switching a factory involves taking an otherwise revenue producing plant offline, and setting up and achieving a satisfactory yield is not trivial, as Sharp has recently found. Panel makers, having typically spent 65 percent of the cost of LCDs on the materials alone, have ambitions to move up the supply chain, even making materials.

 Potential scenarios for OLED TV

One scenario is that a small number of panel makers may come to dominate OLEDs – which could likely be Samsung and LG, both enjoying strong profits. Another is that the LCD industry repeats itself again with OLEDs – with many panel makers and therefore the inevitable range of profitable and loss making panel makers that go with it. One could postulate that the Taiwanese may not be a major player in OLEDs (and indeed their LCD businesses will see a shakeout); Japan’s conglomerates have the potential to be major players but it depends now on their ability to fund it as needed; which leaves the mighty two in Korea. And the Chinese.

Stung by plunging sales in Japan and declining demand in North America and Western Europe, global television shipments in 2012 fell, marking a major inflection point that will have a lasting impact on the market, according to an IHS iSuppli Worldwide Television Market Tracker Report from the IHS TV Systems Intelligence Service at information and analytics provider IHS.

Global shipments of all kinds of televisions in 2012 amounted to 238.5 million units, down 6.3 percent from 254.6 million in 2011. Shipments aren’t expected to rise back to the 2011 level until 2015, when they will amount to 253.1 million units.

Global TV market won't recover until 2015

“Television shipments in 2012 declined for the first time for more than a decade, sounding the coda for the flat-panel replacement wave that deluged the business throughout the 2000s,” said Tom Morrod, TV systems analyst at IHS. “This event marked a fundamental change in the growth trajectory of the market, with flat or minimal increases in shipments expected in the coming years—a sharp contrast to the double-digit increases seen prior to 2010. While some specific events contributed to the downturn of 2012, such as the fall of sales to the Japanese market, the decline reflects a fundamental slowdown in the television market, with liquid crystal display television (LCD TV) shipments falling for the first time ever. Although television shipments will stabilize in 2013 and growth will return in 2014, developed markets have become saturated with flat-panel televisions.”

Television market hits a wall in 2012

The TV market had been undergoing a slowdown prior to 2012, with shipments rising by 11.6 percent in 2010 and decelerating to 1 percent in 2011. By the beginning of this decade, most consumers in developed regions already had replaced their old cathode-ray tube (CRT) sets with flat-panel models, and many buyers in emerging economies had also made the switch. Combined with economic factors, and with issues related to government subsidies and the analog transition, the slowdown of the flat-panel replacement trend contributed to the major downturn in 2012.

The North American and Western European regions in 2012 both experienced significant shipment declines. Meanwhile, growth stalled in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. Eastern Europe and China were the only regions to continue to enjoy rising shipments

The biggest reduction occurred in Japan, where shipments fell by 13.5 million units in 2012, accounting for the vast majority of the global decline of 16.0 million.

Point shaving

The decline in Japan was due to the end of the country’s “eco-points” subsidy program. Starting in mid-2009, the program gave consumers points for buying energy-efficient products—such as light-emitting diode (LED)-backlit LCD TVs. These points could then be redeemed to buy other items.

Between 2009 and 2011, eco-points generated an additional 25 million television sets sold in the Japanese market. With the revocation of this artificial stimulus, demand declined in 2012, and the Japanese TV market will continue to be severely affected for the next five years.

Regional woes

The decline in Western Europe was predominantly due to the economic situation, combined with the analog switch-off. Markets such as France, Italy and Spain have experienced severe declines following analog broadcast switch-offs in 2010 and 2011. At the same time, there were declines in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Greece because of financial challenges.

There was, however, some growth generated by the more prosperous Central European nations, with Germany in particular still continuing to show impressive growth.

In North America, the decline was caused by a mixture of economic factors and by the fact that consumers had increased their demand in 2010 and 2011. By 2012, however, buyers had expended their disposable income for television purchases.

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific market stalled because of lower growth than expected in India, together with declining sales in established markets such as Australia.

The Middle East and Africa continued their overall growth, but strife in certain countries—particularly Syria—had a negative impact on television shipments.

Television market rebounds in 2014

In 2013, the global TV market will stabilize, with shipments remaining flat compared to 2012, as economic conditions even out. Shipments will rise by a scant 0.3 percent for the year.

However, shipments will return to growth in 2014 with a 2.8 percent increase. The Football World Cup, to be held in Brazil, will boost Latin America sales, while China is expected to continue to prosper.

By 2017, global television shipments will rise to 270.5 million units for a number of reasons—as Chinese manufacturers flood the Asia-Pacific markets with new models; as Japan, North America and Western Europe continue to recover; and as ultra-high-definition (UHD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV uptake becomes more affordable.

LCDs fall for first time

The LCD TV market fell for the first time ever on an annual basis in 2012, with shipments declining to 209.8 million units, down slightly from 211.3 million in 2011. However, shipments are expected to return to growth and continue expanding through 2017 as new technologies like Smart TV and UHD increases.

Plasma TV shipments fell to 13.1 million units in 2012, down from 17.9 million 2011. This is partly due to Panasonic significantly reducing its supply of plasma televisions, and partly due to large-sized LCD displays becoming increasingly cost effective. North America continues to be a stronghold for plasma, as does China, but all regions experienced an annual decline in shipments. By 2017, it is anticipated that Plasma will be a niche product, and that the market will have almost completely transitioned to LCD TV and to OLED.

CRT-TV shipments slid to 15.5 million, down nearly 40 percent from 25.2 million in 2011. Global CRT shipments will cease by 2016, IHS expects.