Demand for foldable OLED displays to surge a hundredfold by 2025

The global foldable OLED display market will see explosive growth in the next five years according to the Omdia Foldable Display Technology and Market 2020 report.

Demand for the foldable OLED displays is predicted to surge 100-fold by 2025 with shipments of 73.1 million.

2020 is estimated to see shipments of foldable OLED displays increase to 3.9 million, which is a five-fold increase from 700,000 units in 2019.

Jerry Kang, senior principal analyst at Omdia, believes foldable OLEDs are leading the next wave of innovation in smartphone form factors where small devices can support large displays.

He expects panel suppliers to address current manufacturing issues of foldable displays such as low yields and high costs.

Kang says panel suppliers need to improve the reliability of foldable cover lenses, touch sensors and polarizer films.

In addition, they have to adopt innovations including ultra-thin glass (UTG), touch sensor on thin-film-encapsulation (TSP on TFE) and colour filter on thin-film-encapsulation (CF on TFE).

One particular company is set to benefit from the explosive growth in the global foldable OLED market. Samsung is the current market leader in mobile OLED displays and has commercialised the UTG cover for foldable devices.

It is also ahead of the competition with two foldable phones in the market, the Galaxy Fold and the Galaxy Z Flip, which gives Samsung a wealth of experience to manufacture and supply foldable OLED panels.

This article was first published in Hardware Zone.