In 2021, the development trend of China's new display industry is good, and it will continue to maintain a rapid growth trend. China has become the world's largest display panel production base, the overall scale of the industry has further grown, the industrial chain and supply chain ecology has been accelerated, domestic upstream enterprises have gradually grown, some core equipment has achieved zero breakthroughs, and the synergy effect of the industrial chain has been significantly improved.

With the help of the development of 5G, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, cloud computing and other technologies, a variety of display technologies are expanding a broader application space, and Chinese enterprises will get more development opportunities.

2021 is the first year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", and the "14th Five-Year Plan" provides strategic guidance for China's new display to "become bigger and stronger". At the same time, many departments have also introduced a series of supporting policies to help the development of the new display industry.

At the end of March this year, in order to accelerate the expansion of a new generation of information technology and support the development of the new display industry, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs and the State Administration of Taxation jointly issued the "Notice on the Import Tax Policy to Support the Development of the New Display Industry from 2021 to 2030", from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2030, the new display device manufacturers will import raw materials, consumables and clean room supporting systems for their own use that cannot be produced domestically or whose performance cannot meet the demand. Production equipment (including imported equipment and domestic equipment) spare parts, for the new display industry's key raw materials, spare parts (i.e., targets, photoresists, masks, polarizers, color filter films) manufacturers import domestic production materials and consumables that cannot be produced domestically or whose performance cannot meet the demand, are exempt from import tariffs.

In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other six departments jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out the "Hundred Cities and Thousand Screens" UHD Video Landing Promotion Activities in October to help the development of the UHD video industry; The National Film Administration released the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Chinese Films" in November, which listed technologies and equipment such as cinema LED screens as key research objects, allowing LED screen manufacturers to see new growth space.

Ouyang Zhongcan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out that under the new development pattern, China's display industry must strengthen the dominant position of enterprises in technological innovation, promote the integration and innovation of the upstream, midstream and downstream of the industrial chain, large and medium-sized enterprises, and establish an independent, controllable, safe and controllable industrial chain as soon as possible.

The new display industry is an important part of the electronic information industry, up to now, the total investment of China's new display industry has exceeded 1.3 trillion yuan, becoming the world's largest display panel production base. In 2021, China's display industry will continue to maintain a rapid growth trend, and has achieved good results in terms of industrial scale, enterprise revenue, technology advancement, and industrial chain ecology.

First of all, the overall scale of the industry has further grown, and the panel production capacity in Chinese mainland accounts for more than 60% of the world. Secondly, major panel companies such as BOE and TCL Huaxing have achieved good benefits in the first half of the year in the cycle of strong market demand and rapid price rise, and the output value of the new display industry in Chinese mainland is expected to reach 510 billion yuan in 2021, a year-on-year increase of more than 14%. Secondly, the technological innovation of the whole industry has been steadily promoted, Mini LED backlight, folding screen, under-screen camera and other rapid entry into the market, inkjet printing OLED, Micro LED, silicon-based OLED, etc. continue to receive industry attention. Finally, the improvement of the industrial chain and supply chain ecology has accelerated, domestic upstream enterprises have gradually grown, overseas multinational companies have continued to invest in China, the localization matching rate of materials has reached more than 50%, some core equipment has achieved zero breakthroughs, and the synergy effect of the industrial chain has been significantly improved.

Hu Chunming, executive deputy secretary general of the liquid crystal branch of the China Optics and Optoelectronics Industry Association, pointed out that at present, China's TFT-LCD technology has been comprehensively leading in terms of production capacity, output, output value and profitability. AMOLED technology has made further breakthroughs, and it is expected that the global proportion of output value will exceed 20% this year, and the global proportion of shipment area will exceed 30%. The future development trend of the industry is that incremental innovation will accelerate the evolution of technology, and emerging applications will expand to diversification.

Entering 2021, with the further popularization of new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, the display industry is more diversified in application directions. In the smartphone market, the display screen has become one of the key directions of innovation and competition of related enterprises, giving birth to technologies such as waterfall screens, transparent screens, folding screens and surround screens, and various mobile phone manufacturers are actively deploying screen innovation. TVs and computers, which occupy a high weight in the new display market, have become important directions for the next step of development with large size, ultra-high definition, and low cost. It is worth noting that the rise of industries such as vehicle display, intelligent display and virtual reality has further expanded the application range of new displays, and has given birth to the cooperation between panel companies and complete machine enterprises and smart home enterprises.

At present, China's display enterprises have a wide range of layouts in a variety of display technology fields, and their technical strength has been continuously enhanced.

In the field of LCD, China's mainland panel manufacturers have begun to dominate global production capacity. According to the relevant data, China's mainland LCD panel production capacity will account for 67% of the global production capacity in 2021, and panel shipments are expected to reach 144 million square meters, and it is expected that by 2025, China's mainland LCD production capacity will account for 79%. At the same time, the market share has gradually concentrated in the leading enterprises in the industry, the industry concentration has increased significantly, and the supply and demand structure has continued to improve. According to data from Qunzhi Consulting, in the first half of 2021, the top five panel manufacturers in terms of global LCD TV panel shipments are BOE, TCL Huaxing, Innolux, Huike and LGD, four of which are from China. Industry insiders believe that the LCD industry will gradually enter a mature period from a period of rapid development driven by investment, and a large cyclical fluctuation led by the supply cycle will turn into a narrow range affected by the demand off-peak season.

In the field of OLED, in the second quarter of 2021, AMOLED smartphone panel shipments in mainland China accounted for more than 20%, and innovative technologies such as folding screens and under-screen cameras continued to break through, and products have successively entered the supply system of international brand enterprises.

At present, the global OLED production capacity is mainly concentrated in South Korea, China, Japan and other places, while domestic manufacturers are mainly responsible for the manufacturing of small and medium-sized OLED, and the core suppliers include BOE, Shenzhen Tianma, Visionox, Hehui Optoelectronics, etc. According to incomplete statistics, a total of 12 OLED production lines have been put into production by panel manufacturers in Chinese mainland, a total of 4 production lines will be put into production in 2021, and a total of 2 production lines will be put into production in 2022. With the domestic OLED production lines put into operation one after another, domestic manufacturers will also usher in a round of performance release, and the market share is also expected to accelerate.

In the field of Mini/Micro LED, Chinese enterprises have grown rapidly in various links such as Mini/Micro LED chip manufacturing, chip packaging, backlight applications and direct display applications by virtue of their original advantages in the field of display panels and traditional LED displays, and new technologies and applications such as glass-based AM-Mini LEDs and LED digital virtual studios continue to emerge. As a transitional technology for the development of Micro LED, Mini LED fills the "technology gap" between the current small pitch technology and Micro LED, and the market space is huge.

Zheng Youjiong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out at the 2021 World Display Industry Conference held in June this year that Mini/Micro LED display is still a new technology in development and is currently ushering in a golden window period. The Mini/Micro LED industry has entered a new stage of development, and according to the law of display technology development and upgrading, there will generally be a golden growth period of seven or eight years.

In the field of micro-display, BOE Fast-LCD display devices have been widely used in the VR headset market, and the application of silicon-based OLED display devices from SeeYA and other companies in the field of AR headsets is also continuing to advance. Next, with the easing of the epidemic and the gradual establishment of the metaverse ecosystem, the demand for VR/AR display panels will gradually increase. According to IDC, VR headset shipments will increase from about 5 million units in 2020 to more than 28 million units in 2025. Shipments of AR headsets are expected to grow even more significantly, from about 300,000 units in 2020 to 21 million units in 2025.

In the future, driven by the development of 5G, AI, IoT, metaverse and other fields, a variety of display technologies will expand a broader application space, and Chinese enterprises will also usher in more development opportunities.

Source: China Electronic News, Electronic Information Industry Network