Global notebook panel market 2019 summary and 2020 outlook

According to data from Sigmaintell, notebook panel shipments in 2019 were 188 million, an increase of 2.0% year-on-year. The main growth driver came from the replacement demand caused by Microsoft's announcement to stop supporting win7 in early 2019, followed by It is the impact brought by the panel industry itself: large-size demand is falling, panel manufacturers are positive in the medium size, and the technological innovation of the notebook itself has promoted the industry. Therefore, despite the slowdown in global economic growth in 2019 and constant international trade frictions, Intel CPUs continue to be out of stock, and notebook panel shipments are still seeing slight growth.
BOE's 2019 shipments rank first in the world, with 55.1 million units shipped throughout the year, basically flat year-on-year, with a stable customer structure and stable supply to the top six laptop brands. BOE has a good performance in narrow bezels, low power consumption, gaming, multi-touch and other technology options. In the future, it will continue to cultivate various technical fields and increase the supply of oxide panels. In addition, OLED will gradually launch products to further expand the market space. And expand advantages.

AUO ’s notebook business is relatively benign, with 42.7 million units shipped in 2019, a decline of about 2% year-on-year. However, its focus is more on high-margin and high-value-added products. In the high-end products and various mainstream technologies, it is still in the global leading position. In 2019, LTPS backplane panel shipments reached 3.5 million pieces, mainly 13.3 to 15.6-inch FHD and above products. It mainly supplies flagship models of first-tier brands. Including the market positioning of thin and light, e-sports, and touch, the number of LTPS planned for 2020 will continue to increase.

Innolux shipped 40.6 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 1.5%. In addition to the top global brands, customers are also the main panel suppliers for the new notebook brand Huawei Matebook 3: 2. But overall, its TN products still have a high proportion, so its 6th generation line will begin to transform its production capacity in 2019, significantly increase the supply of IPS, and focus on the notebook panel market. At the same time, the production of LTPS laptop products has also begun to be planned, and the overall product upgrade is expected to be very obvious in 2020.

LG Display (LGD) shipped 29 million units, down about 6% year-on-year, and its customers were mainly Apple, Microsoft, and other international brands. From a technical point of view, LGD has technical advantages in oxides and maintains competitiveness in narrow bezels, high resolution, and gaming. In addition, LGD is also a major supplier of In Touch. Compared with other touch technologies, its advantages in Light and thin have more advantages.

Sharp shipped 8.3 million units, a year-on-year increase. The main customers are Apple, Dell, etc. The products are mainly oxides, and it is also the main panel supplier with high refresh rates of 240Hz and 300Hz. Gigabyte, MSI, Razer and other brands. Due to its current production capacity pressure, it is still very active in planning for laptops in 2020. Both low-end (IPS NTSC 45%), mainstream (IPS sRGB100%), and high-end (low oxide power consumption -150nits 1.x watts) are available. Layout to seize the notebook market.

Longteng Optoelectronics (IVO) shipped 5.3 million units, a slight increase year-on-year, and its main customers are Lenovo, HP, Dell, etc. IVO has always been an advocate of differentiated products. In the line with only a fifth-generation line A-si, IVO insists on being a differentiated product and continues to innovate technically, focusing on negative liquid crystals, On cell touch, anti-peeping panels, etc. Under the fierce competition in the notebook computer market, shipments continued to grow steadily.

CEC Panda shipped 4.9 million pieces, an increase of about 60% year-on-year, and its main customers were Asus, Xiaomi, Acer and other brands. It is worth mentioning that its 120Hz e-sports product shipments have soared in 2019 and achieved good results. E-sports products will continue to be upgraded in 2020. Its Nanjing 8.5th generation oxide body will mainly focus on IT products in the future, and plans to continue to increase IPS capacity to match policy changes.

Other laptop panel suppliers including Hannstar and JDI account for less than 1% of the global total. Samsung Display (SDC) OLED panels are in their infancy in 2019. The total shipment of UHD products is less than 500,000. It will add more new products in 2020 and its price strategy will become more active. Other LTPS panel manufacturers CSOT and Tianma also have active product plans in the notebook market.
 

The rise of aspect ratio 16:10

At 16: 9, it has become the mainstream of laptop displays due to more economical glass cutting utilization. 16:10 is mainly Apple, while other brands are rare, and product positioning is mainly high-end. As the borders of laptops become narrower and narrower, the visual effects of the entire machine become more and more "flat", so in 2019, some brands began to test the water aspect ratio of 16:10, extending the display area downwards, increasing the display area, and achieving a "full screen" display effect.

Sigmaintell predicts that more 16:10 products will be available in 2020. However, at 16:10, panel makers have lower glass cutting utilization and higher costs. Therefore, how to do market positioning and stimulate consumer demand while benefiting the entire industry chain, there are still certain challenges and challenges. Certainty. According to Sigmaintell data, the global notebook computer panel shipments in 2019 are at a 16:10 market share of 9.6%. Taking into account the possible decline of Apple ’s shrinking product line in 2020, the product lines of other camps will increase It is expected that the market share of 16:10 will increase slightly to 10.1% in 2020.
                                   

2. The arrival of the full screen era

Following the development pace of smart phones, the form factor of notebook products is also developing in the direction of "high value", and the panel is also accompanied by the development of three sides narrow to four sides narrow. In FHD IPS products, the mainstream products are basically narrow on three sides, the frame is mainly 3.25mm, and the high-end products are 2.5mm or even 2.15mm. With narrow sides, the size of PCBA has also gradually decreased under the PCBA Flat Type, and the width has been reduced from 10.xmm to about 8mm. In addition, PCBA Bent Type models are also increasing. The technical progress of the panel is matched with the related technical innovation of the whole machine. It is believed that the full screen in the future will gradually become the standard for notebook products.

3. Gaming panel supply has steadily increased

Laptop computer gaming panel refresh rate is currently 144hz mainstream, high-end is 240Hz, panel suppliers are mainly AUO, LGD, BOE, CEC Panda. According to data from Sigmaintell, the number of global notebook gaming panels (above 120Hz) shipped in 2019 was 5.1 million, with a global penetration rate of 2.7%, a significant increase year-on-year, but there are still some limiting factors:

First of all, from the perspective of the overall configuration, the overall configuration of the gaming machine is relatively high. For example, the CPU is equipped with standard pressure, the graphics card is GTX 1050 or higher, and the panel is also a high refresh rate panel.

Second, e-sports notebooks are relatively heavy and have poor portability. Consumers will have limited adaptability if the e-sports specifications are not rigid.

Based on this, with the successive release of "Gaming Ultrabook" products by gaming brands, we believe that "thinning" in 2020 will be an important development direction for gaming notebooks. From the perspective of the panel, in addition to the refresh rate requirements, the gaming panel also has higher requirements on response time, power consumption, etc., there are certain technical thresholds, so gaming panels are still high value-added products.

4. Mini LED Backlit

According to Sigmaintell's analysis, Mini or Micro LED in medium-sized display products, due to size, pixel size technology, and cost constraints, it is more likely that the architecture of TFT LCD + Mini LED backlight development, which means active The feasibility of mass production of autonomous display of light-emitting devices is low. The advantage of Mini LED as a backlight source is that it can more easily achieve the HDR (High Dynamic Range) effect. Therefore, as a high-end display product, it will be preferentially used in the field of gaming and professional display.

As at the CES exhibition in 2020, MSI released the Creator 17 notebook, which uses mini-LED backlight for the first time in notebooks. It has passed HDR 1000 certification and has 240 local dimming areas, mainly for content creators. However, because the mini LED industry chain is still not mature enough, the price of backlight is still high, or even higher than the price of OLED panels, so it is still difficult to increase the volume in the short term. The follow-up depends on the cost trend of the Mini LED industry chain and the product strategy of competitors OLED in notebook computers. .

5. Flexible folding screens are listed one after another

Folding concept products first appeared on smart phones. With the expansion of the mobile phone market and the maturity of flexible OLED technology, new products have also been launched on notebook computers. In 2019, Lenovo released the world's first foldable notebook Thinkpad X1 Fold, which uses a 13.3-inch 4: 3 OLED screen, which is 9.6 inches after folding. In early 2020, Intel released a Horseshoe Bend notebook with a 17.3-inch 4: 3 panel. Dell also Launch of Concept Ori. Of these three models, only Lenovo currently gives an estimated time to market of 2020, and will be equipped with win 10 pro system first, and then win 10x system. However, Sigmaintell believes that although flexible folding notebooks have their advantages, such as thin, portable, multi-mode use, etc., they still face technical challenges in the short term, such as creases, windows system debugging problems, life issues, and costs. Problems, etc., are still in the market promotion stage.
 

In addition to the above several technical trends, low power consumption, thin and light, In cell touch, anti-peeping and other technologies are also the focus of the development of notebook panel products in 2019, and it is expected that they will continue to be upgraded in 2020. According to survey data from Sigmaintell, global notebook panel manufacturers plan to ship a total of 198 million units in 2020, an increase of 5.3% year-on-year. The number of oxides, LTPS, and OLED plans has increased significantly, so the market in 2020 Competition will become fiercer and fiercer, and product upgrades will become more apparent.

The new coronavirus broke out in January 2020. From January 22, the Chinese government adopted strong control measures to limit the spread of the virus, which has a huge impact on the notebook market. Sigmaintell predicts that due to the low rate of factory rework, the global The supply chain of notebook panels and the whole machine will show a tight supply situation from February to March, which will lead to a loss of approximately 7.3% in the first quarter of notebook panel supply. It is estimated that global notebook panel shipments in the first quarter of 2020 will be 39.2 million, a year-on-year decline 5.4%.