2008 Report on China's OLED Market

China is a big producer of consumer electronics in the world. The strong demand for OLED by the making of mobile phones, cameras, PDA and other consumer electronics in China has greatly promoted the country's OLED industry. In 2008, China's revenue from sales of OLED was RMB4.75bn, up by 31.3% year-on-year, while sales volume 85.96 million pieces, up by 85.7%. The CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of sales value and volume of OLED in China is expected to be 30.5% and 23.3% respectively 2009-2011.

Figure: Sales Value of OLED in China 2007-2013

Yet China has not formed a complete OLED industrial chain. In General, the features of the chain are:

1. The upstream products are not very competitive. Although many Chinese companies have entered or will enter the OLED field, most of them stay at the downstream segment of panel making, while the upstream equipment and raw material producing is weak. At the beginning of their development, most China's OLED producers still have a long way to go before achieve mass production, and they rely mainly on Japan and S Korea for the manufacturing equipment and raw materials.

2. It's basically clear that China positions itself as a processer and manufacturer in OLED industry. The country has a sufficient non-expensive labor force, a promising market and relatively backward technology. As a result, China can only focus on manufacturing and processing which are labor-intensive.

3. China lacks powerful companies acting as leaders of the industry. Samsung from S Korea is the number one OLED producer by shipment. Furthermore, Samsung has great R&D strength to secure its position as a global leader. At the same time Samsung engages in the making of mobile phones, MP3 and top-end TV sets etc, which means it has strong demand for OLED. But in China there is not even one such a company with great size, complete categories of products.