In 2021, the panel industry maintained a high degree of prosperity, and the revenue of major manufacturers increased against the trend

Recently, the main domestic panel manufacturers BOE, TCL Technology, Shentianma and Vision Nuo have successively released 2021 financial reports and performance expresses, and the revenue performance has achieved contrarian growth, and the overall prosperity of the industry is still maintained at a high level.

Revenue from major players increased

BOE's 2021 financial report shows that the company's annual revenue exceeded 200 billion yuan for the first time, reaching 219.310 billion yuan, an increase of 61.79% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to the mother reached 25.831 billion yuan, an increase of 412.96% year-on-year. In the mainstream semiconductor display device business, BOE's market share in five major application areas such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, monitors, and TVs continues to rank first in the world.

According to the performance report released by TCL Technology, the total operating income in 2021 will reach 163.5 billion yuan, an increase of 112.8% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company reached 10.06 billion yuan, an increase of 129.3% year-on-year, of which the net profit of the semiconductor display business increased by about 340% year-on-year, mainly benefiting from the increase in production capacity, the implementation of the high-end strategy of large-size products, the accelerated breakthrough of medium-sized products and customers, and the focus on differentiation of small sizes.

According to the 2021 financial report released by Shentianma, in 2021, the company achieved operating income of 31.829 billion yuan, an increase of 8.88% year-on-year; Achieved a net profit of 1.542 billion yuan, an increase of 4.61% year-on-year. Mainly due to the continuous full production and full sales of mature production lines, AMOLED production capacity continues to be released. In terms of market performance, LTPS smart machines, vehicle-mounted TFT, and vehicle-mounted instrument shipments rank first in the world, rigid OLED smart wear shipments rank second in the world, and maintain a global leader in high-end medical, smart home, industrial handheld, human-computer interaction and other market segments.

Visionox's 2021 performance forecast shows that the achieved operating income is expected to be 4.4 billion yuan to 4.6 billion yuan, and the main business operation continues to improve, of which the sales revenue of OLED products is 4.250 billion yuan to 4.450 billion yuan, an increase of 97.15% to 106.43% over the same period of the previous year, and the gross profit margin of OLED products has been greatly improved compared with the same period of the previous year.

Panel manufacturers have achieved excellent revenue performance, inseparable from their own positive progress, resilience to cope with the complex development environment and the ability to step on the rhythm of industry development. Looking back at the whole year of 2021, the first half of the year was affected by strong terminal demand and the continuous shortage of upstream supply chain materials such as driving ICs, the display panel market showed a pattern of short supply, panel prices continued to rise, and the revenue of global panel manufacturers hit a record high. Entering the second half of the year, the market demand gradually returned to rationality, the LCD panel ended the longest upward cycle in history, and the prices of various application products have fallen. The display industry has worked together to go through the cycle and achieve greater growth. According to Qunzhi Consulting data, in 2021, the revenue scale of the global new display panel industry created a record high water level, reaching about $136.6 billion, an increase of about 18.2% year-on-year.

OLED is growing rapidly

In recent years, Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei and other terminal manufacturers have increased the import of OLED panels, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and TV products, and the proportion of OLED panel penetration has gradually expanded. According to Qunzhi Consulting data, the global OLED display panel revenue scale in 2021 is about 40.7 billion US dollars, an increase of about 34.6% year-on-year.

BoE achieved flexible AMOLED product shipments of tens of millions of shipments in a single month in December last year, achieved milestone development, and continuously supplied screens based on f-OLED high-end flexible display technology for folding mobile phones and folding notebooks of global first-line brands such as Honor, OPPO, and ASUS. According to the data of Qunzhi Consulting, in 2021, the shipment volume of BOE flexible OLED smart phone panels will be about 60 million pieces, an increase of nearly 60% year-on-year, and the shipment volume will rank first in China and second in the world. In terms of production line operation, the operation quality of the 6th generation AMOLED production line in Chengdu and Mianyang has steadily improved, and the 6th generation AMOLED production line in Chongqing has successfully achieved mass production delivery.

TCL Huaxing's t4 factory focuses on high-end OLED panels such as folding screens and under-screen cameras, and its flexible OLED technology and folding screen technology are at the leading level in the entire industry, and will reach 45K design capacity in 2022. In addition, Huaxing's AMOLED factory has also made relevant layouts in the automotive aspect, and it is expected to cover the high-end, high-end and low-end in the future, especially the high-end flexible OLED in-vehicle display field.

Shentianma's mature production line continued to be fully produced and sold, AMOLED production capacity was continuously released, AMOLED flexible mobile phone display module product technical capabilities continued to improve, shipments and sales increased significantly, wearable business grew rapidly, and mobile smart terminal OLED business shipments doubled year-on-year. Rigid OLED smart wearables shipped the second largest in the world. In terms of production lines, the 5.5th generation AMOLED production line and the 6th generation AMOLED production line are laid out.

Visionox's 2021 OLED product sales revenue was 4.250 billion yuan to 4.450 billion yuan, an increase of 97.15% to 106.43% over the same period of the previous year. Kunshan's 5.5th generation AMOLED panel production line shipments increased by about 56% over the same period last year, and Gu'an's 6th generation AMOLED panel production line shipments increased by about 140% over the same period last year.

Breakthroughs have been made in different technical routes

In 2021, display technology still shows a diversified development trend. Judging from the annual reports released by each panel factory, TFT-LCD has continuously made breakthroughs in capacity and product innovation applications, Mini LED has been applied in multiple market segments, and Micro-LED and printed OLED have orderly promoted the research and development process.

TFT-LCD production capacity has made a new breakthrough. BoE Beijing's 5th generation TFT-LCD production line transformation has achieved new results, and the proportion of innovative application products has achieved new breakthroughs; Ordos 5.5th generation TFT-LCD production line full production and sales, the performance of a significant increase; Fuzhou's 8.5th generation TFT-LCD production line production capacity reached a new high; The yield level of FHD products in Hefei's 10.5th generation TFT-LCD production line hit a new high in the industry.

Mini LED is applied in multiple market segments. BOE launched the industry's first PCB-based 55-inch Mini LED splicing backlight product, breaking into the high-end security market; Mini LED backlight notebook products to achieve mass production delivery of head brand customers; Mini LED VR products to achieve the head brand mass production and import. TCL Huaxing 47 mini LED car screen has formed a commercial application and has been introduced to the world's top customers.

Important advances have been made in new technologies. TCL Huaxing and Sanan Semiconductor jointly invested in the establishment of a joint laboratory, focusing on the development of Micro-LED technology, related technical achievements have gradually been prepared to land, such as Micro LED in miniaturization products and oversized product applications, it is expected that in three to five years, TCL Huaxing will gradually make Micro LED become the mainstream display technology. In terms of printing OLED, it has invested in Japanese JOLED companies and plans to establish an 8.5-generation flexible printing OLED in Guangzhou.

At present, the global display industry pattern has formed a competitive pattern of "one super and many strong". According to the research of Qunzhi Consulting, BOE maintains a clear leading edge in all applications, and the market share of each application market has exceeded 20% in terms of the number of shipments and the market share of the shipping area. There is an imbalance in other panel manufacturers, most manufacturers have certain competitive advantages in some areas, such as TCL Huaxing, Huike in the TV panel market share can be maintained at about 15%, but it can not be ignored in the IT application panel, Mobile application panel performance is still relatively weak. Under this competitive landscape, it is expected that Chinese panel manufacturers including TCL Huaxing, Huike, Tianma, Visionox and other Chinese panel manufacturers will adopt active strategies for applications other than TV in the future, including the expansion of existing production lines and strive for opportunities to increase investment in new production lines.