According to DSCC statistics show that in 2024, the total sales of China's OLED material enterprises reached 252 million US dollars, a strong growth of 58% over the previous year, and the growth rate is far higher than the 22% growth rate of global OLED material sales last year.

        Although DSCC has not yet announced the total size of the entire market, according to industry estimates, the total sales of China's OLED material companies in the global market accounted for about 11%-12%. In contrast, South Korea's major OLED material companies include LG Chemical, Samsung SDI, Toksan Group's Neolux, Solus Advanced Materials, and SFC (a joint venture between Samsung Display and Japan's Horita Production company). It is reported that the total sales of OLED materials companies in South Korea account for nearly 40% of the world.

        In China, Olaide, Wright Optoelectronics, Xia He, etc. belong to the main OLED material enterprises. DSCC revealed that BOE has begun to purchase some key materials from Xia He, which were previously exclusively supplied by UDC and Novaled (a Samsung company) in the United States, including green dopants (UDC) and P-dopants (Novaled).

        The product structure supplied by Chinese OLED material companies to local panel companies has changed significantly, gradually expanding from the relatively single general layer in the past to the red (R), green (G), blue (B) luminous layer and P-type dopant and other diversified fields. Take Alide as an example, its flagship products focus on electron injection layers (EIL) and red, green and blue luminous main materials; Wright Optoelectronics has a strong foothold in the market with green main materials.

        DSCC in-depth analysis pointed out that the sales increase of China's OLED materials companies is mainly attributable to two aspects: first, the OLED production line operating rate of China's panel companies has steadily risen; Second, the area put into production continues to increase.

        It is worth mentioning that although the data is not specifically mentioned, it is understood that the operating rate of China's small and medium-sized OLED production line is still maintained at a high level of about 90% today. Back in 2023, Tianma and other companies took the lead in launching the OLED cost-effective strategy, which significantly increased the penetration rate of OLED in the Chinese smartphone market. Affected by this, Chinese smartphone manufacturers have chosen affordable OLED screens on low-cost models, and because consumers are "difficult to go back" after the experience, it is difficult to recover the share of liquid crystal display devices (LCD) in this market.

        In the Chinese market, the lowest price of 6-inch smartphone OLED screens once fell to just over $10 in the first half of 2023, but last year, the price has gradually recovered to about $20, and is still basically stable in this price range.

        From the perspective of the composition of the entire OLED material sales, by application field segmentation, mobile products (smartphones, watches, etc.) occupy the largest share, followed by TV, IT products followed. DSCC forecasts that OLED material sales for IT products experienced substantial growth last year and are expected to successfully surpass sales of TV products by 2028. In fact, just last year, Apple officially launched the first OLED version of the iPad Pro, adding strong evidence to this trend.

        After a comprehensive assessment, DSCC believes that although the products produced by China's OLED material enterprises are mostly concentrated in the local market sales at this stage, the performance gap between them and the products of the world's top enterprises is gradually narrowing. Especially in the supply of Chinese panel companies on the track, the competition between global OLED material companies and Chinese local companies is becoming increasingly fierce.

        Looking ahead, the global OLED materials market is expected to grow steadily at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4% from 2024 to 2028. DSCC further explained that although the recovery of LG's large white (W) -OLED production line has lagged behind the expected progress, the expanding demand of Chinese manufacturers in mobile products and IT products will be a key driver for the continued growth of the OLED materials market.

        Looking back to July last year, DSCC had boldly predicted that LG Chemical was expected to surpass DuPont and rank second in the global OLED material sales ranking that year. At that time, it was estimated that the ranking was: the first UDC, the second LG Chemical, the third DuPont, the fourth Samsung SDI, and the fifth Idemitsu Xingjin. Not only that, the DSCC also expects the gap between LG Chem and DuPont to widen further by 2025.

        In the wave of market competition, LG Chemical performance is quite bright. It first successfully grabbed the hole-blocking layer market for Samsung Display's small OLED material kit from Solos Advanced Materials, and then steadily supplied P-type dopants to LG Display from the end of 2023. Back in October 2023, LG showed a high-profile announcement that after more than 10 years of joint research with LG Chemistry, it finally independently developed P-type dopants, breaking the exclusive monopoly situation of Norwald in the field.