November 2011

---

OLED Lighting Material Trends

While OLED lighting is still in the early stages of commercialization with small-quantity production on pilot lines. But panel shipments for OLED lighting applications are expected to really ramp up starting around the 2014 – 2015 timeframe.  Observers of the OLED lighting industry, including NanoMarkets, have been projecting growth for a while now, but some recent developments are making those projections look more certain than ever:

October 2011

---

What is holding back flexible OLED displays?

It has long been the dram of the OLED industry to provide high quality, low cost flexible panels manufactured using R2R processes on plastic substrates.  What has held back their commercialization?  Certainly, there are several factors that have kept flexible OLEDs from becoming anything other than a dream, from the dearth of suitable substrates to the (near) nonexistence of flexible backplanes.  But lack of adequate encapsulation technologies is also a key factor, because the viability of flexible OLEDs built on inexpensive porous plastics relies on the ability to encapsulate them with adequate environmental barriers.

Opportunities for Encapsulation in OLED Lighting

The relatively early-stage nature of this market, combined with the knowledge that high volume—and preferably roll-to-roll (R2R)—manufacturing will be necessary to compete in the long-term, has meant that OLED panel manufacturers have been quite willing to explore development of non-glass encapsulation technologies.  For this reason, OLED encapsulation suppliers can distinguish themselves by developing proprietary solutions that will give them long-term competitive advantages.

August 2011

---

Demand for OLEDs Escalates

For the better part of a decade, OLED materials have represented little more than a niche opportunity for specialty chemical companies and a few start-ups.  This was primarily because the market for OLEDs was largely confined to MP3 payers and cell-phone sub-displays and was plagued with cost challenges and low margins. While materials firms were happy to participate in this market, their enthusiasm remained curbed by the fact that despite constant predictions of the "Year of the OLED," these predictions always turned out to be false hopes.  Pessimism about the sector was also encouraged by the fact that a number of display firms quit making OLED displays altogether having been discouraged especially with the difficulties in making AM OLED displays.

July 2011

---

New Strategies Needed for the OLED Materials Business Gets Tougher, But New Opportunities Abound

We think that the OLED materials business is likely to get tougher in important ways.  It is one thing supplying materials to an industry whose end product is mostly a type of display that shows a clock or date on one side of a cell phone.  It is quite another supplying materials to an industry whose goal is to produce large displays for videophiles and attractive lighting that offers high-efficiency and improved total cost of ownership.  AM OLED displays are largely being marketed in the consumer electronics space on image quality and vibrancy of color.  This raises the question as to how materials makers can improve their products to help their customers sell more OLED cell phones and TVs.  In the OLED lighting space, the focus is on efficiency and reducing total cost of ownership and, here again, it seems that OLED materials suppliers can develop proprietary solutions that will give them long-term competitive advantages.

October 2010

---

Cost and Efficiency: The Two Key Competitive Factors for OLED Lighting Materials

In NanoMarkets' judgment, the two key needs of the OLED lighting market that materials firms must play to with their lighting-oriented offerings are cost and efficiency.  To win support from investors and senior management we believe that it is very important for these two factors to be part of any business plan to sell materials into the OLED lighting space.

Movers and Shakers of the OLED Materials Market

The number of firms that have activity in the OLED lighting space continues to grow and with the exception of firms whose principle interest is luminaires all or any of them could influence the materials space in a number of ways.  In particular, we note that – as the analysis above indicates – although there are many ways to make an OLED light at the present time, it seems very likely that as the industry matures this variety will be reduced both by accepted industry standards and practices and by the need to settle on a few materials that can be produced in large quantities.

May 2010

---

OLED Lighting Product Evolution and Revenue Generation

NanoMarkets believes that the market for OLED lighting will result in billions of dollars of revenues by the middle of this decade.  For now, however, the OLED light is a high-priced niche – or even novelty – item.  In this article – based on NanoMarkets’ latest research – we explain how we think that the OLED lighting market will get to be so big.