On 11th May, DisplaySearch – A Market Research Firm announced the results of their search in the Global Smart Watch Panel Market. According to the results, LG Display had a stellar turnover of US$186 million in the Global Smart Watch Panel Market. It should be noted that the result DisplaySearch has announced is only of the Q1 – First Quarter of this year. Within this period, the overall market is estimated at US$204 million and LG had the market share of US$186 million. With this, LG dominates the market of smart watch display panels with around 90.9% of market share. According to DisplaySearch, other competitors are Samsung Display, Japan Display, and Futaba. Samsung was the runner-up and had a market share of just 3.1% with Japan Display and Futaba holding 2.4% each. Samsung reached around US$ 6.3 Million and Japan Display and Futaba had a share worth US$ 4.4 Million.
In the Q1 of 2014, LG Display shipped 1.1 Million of display units. But in Q1 of 2015, the shipments were multiplied by 8 and around 8 Million units were shipped in this quarter. Japan Display and Futaba shipped 1.48 and 1.12 Million units and claimed the runner-up and 3rd spot accordingly. Samsung Display uses most of its displays for its own watch Gear. So to sum it up, LG shipped 66.8 Percent of all the units shipped to manufacturers of SmartWatch whereas Japan Display shipped 12.4 Percent. Fatuba was in the third spot and shipped 9.4 Percent.
LG Display’s dominance in the Global Smart Watch Panel Market is no surprise. LG is providing their flexible OLED Touch Panel to Apple for their Apple Watch. LG have produced around 6 Million displays just for Apple’s SmartWatch. LG Display also provides OLED Touch Panel to LG Electronics for their watches LG G Watch R and LG Watch Urbane by shipping 1.1 Million Display. The seven-fold increase in the shipments is due to the deal signed between Apple and LG for Touch Panels. One more reason of LG Display’s success is their accomplishment of being the first developers and mass producers of circular flexible OLEDs which makes the difficult task of designing a SmartWatch much easier. OLEDs also consume lesser power and are widely utilized in SmartWatches. LG Display will face a huge downfall if the deal between Samsung and Apple is signed for Apple’s second generation SmartWatch. LG Display will find it difficult to hold their dominance in the market.