Industry Focus

Display panels are mainly used in electronic devices such as TVs, desktop computers, notebooks and mobile phones, including LCD panels, OLED and mini LEDs, and the overall composition and materials of different panel types are different.

1. Backlight module

Backlight module is the core raw material of LCD panels, accounting for the largest proportion of cost in LCD panels, accounting for 32%. China's backlight module has a high degree of localization and is basically manufactured by domestic enterprises.

2. Organic luminescent materials

Organic light-emitting materials are the core raw materials of OLED panels, accounting for 23% of the cost of OLED panels, second only to the proportion of equipment costs to the total cost. The organic luminescent materials industry has high technical barriers, and the market competition is dominated by foreign enterprises, and the market size of the organic luminescent materials industry will reach 733 million US dollars in 2021.

3. Glass substrate

Glass substrate is a thin glass sheet with an extremely flat surface, which is one of the key basic materials in the flat panel display industry. Glass substrate industry has high technical barriers, the industry is mainly monopolized by American and Japanese enterprises, in order to fill the domestic gap, domestic enterprises continue to increase the research and development of glass substrates, at this stage China has become the largest source of glass substrate technology, in 2021 China's glass substrate patent applications for 4259 items, accounting for 90.9% of the world, the industry market size of 25.2 billion yuan.

4. Polarizer

The full name of polarizer is polarizer, liquid crystal display imaging must rely on polarized light, all liquid crystals have two polarizers before and after close to the liquid crystal glass, forming a total thickness of about 1mm liquid crystal sheet. If any polarizer is missing, the liquid crystal cannot display the image. As an important component of display panels, the supply of polarizers in China is relatively stable, and the supply of polarizers has remained at 140 million square meters for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2020, and the supply of polarizers in China has increased significantly in 2021, reaching 265 million square meters, an increase of 89.3% over the previous year.

5. Liquid crystal material

Liquid crystal materials generally refer to a class of organic compounds that have both the fluidity of liquids and the anisotropy of crystals under certain conditions. In recent years, due to the improvement of technology, OLED display technology has appeared in the display panel industry, and has gradually replaced display technology in high-end smart phones, TVs and other fields, but TFT-LCD display technology is still dominated by TFT-LCD display technology in the low-end field. Therefore, at present, China's liquid crystal materials are mainly used in TFT-LCD display technology. At present, the liquid crystal material market is dominated by foreign companies such as Merck in Germany, Zhisuo and DIC in Japan, and domestic production capacity is continuing to expand.

With the advancement of technology, the prosperity of China's display panel industry has remained at a high level in recent years, second only to the microelectronics industry in the information industry. In the first half of 2022, China's display panel shipments reached 90.2 million pieces, a year-on-year increase of 11.7%.

In terms of competition, China's industry market concentration is high, and industry competition is fierce. In terms of panel factory shipments, BOE shipped 28.9 million pieces in the first half of 2022, a year-on-year increase of 17.2%, ranking first in display panel shipments. In terms of revenue by business, BOE's display panel business revenue is far ahead, with 202.219 billion yuan in 2021, accounting for 92.21% of the overall revenue.