Detectors & Imaging

Wearable, mobile devices to drive 300% flexible display growth from 2016 to 2022

July 7, 2016

IHS forecasts that revenue from flexible displays will increase more than 300% due to wearable/mobile display popularity.

Gail Overton

Wearable and mobile displays are expected to drive major growth in the flexible display market.

Market analysis company IHS Technology (Englewood, CO) forecasts that revenue from flexible displays is expected to increase more than 300%—from just $3.7 billion in 2016 to $15.5 billion in 2022—as the popularity and penetration of wearable and mobile devices increase. It says that flexible displays will comprise 13% of total display market revenue in 2020.

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics launched the first smartphones with flexible active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays in 2013, and both companies continue to adapt flexible AMOLED displays for their smartphones, smartwatches and fitness trackers. Inspired by these successes, other mobile manufacturers are now developing their own flexible-display devices.

"The varieties of flexible displays include screens that are bendable, curved and edge-curved, but fully foldable form factors are expected within the next two years," said Jerry Kang, principal analyst of Display Research for IHS Technology. "Only a few suppliers—including Samsung Display, LG Display, E-ink and Futaba—are now regularly supplying flexible displays to the market. However, many more panel makers are now attempting to build flexible display capacity, leveraging the latest AMOLED display technology."

According to the IHS Flexible Display Market Tracker, flexible displays are primarily used in smartphones and smartwatches in 2016; however, use in other applications, including tablet PCs, near-eye virtual reality devices, automotive monitors and OLED TVs is expected by 2022. “Consumer device manufacturers will eventually need to innovate their conventionally designed flat, rectangular form-factors to make way for the latest curved, foldable and rollable screens,” Kang said.

SOURCE: IHS Technology; https://technology.ihs.com/580906/wearable-and-mobile-devices-leading-to-rise-in-flexible-displays-ihs-says

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.