A major event in 2017 showing the industry chain is the release of the Apple iPhone X mobile phone, especially the AMOLED screen, which has a significant pulling effect on the upstream industry chain, and has driven AMOLED panel makers and upstream OLED material manufacturers to actively stock their products. According to OFweek Industry Research Institute, the global OLED material market in 2017 was US$856 million, a significant year-on-year increase of 61%. With the commissioning of several domestic AMOLED panel production lines, the global OLED material market is expected to reach US$1.258 billion in 2018, an increase of 47% year-on-year.
There are two main application markets for AMOLED panels: smartphones and OLED TVs. Major handset brands such as Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, Apple, Samsung and other new flagship models all use AMOLED display technology, which greatly increases the demand for OLED panels. In 2017, sales of OLED TVs in China reached 120,000 units. Sony, Philips, LG, Skyworth, and Konka TV companies all joined the OLED camp to achieve differentiated sales. The industry is optimistic that the overall sales volume of China's OLED TVs in 2018 will be at least doubled on the basis of 2017, which will greatly increase the demand for upstream OLED materials.