The coronavirus pandemic has severely affected the smartphone business in the second quarter of this year. According to a UBI Research report, even smartphone OLED panel shipments took a plunge in Q2, down 23.1 percent year-on-year (YoY).
Compared to last quarter’s shipments, that’s a decline of 17 percent. As per the report, only 87 million units of smartphone OLED panels have been shipped in the second quarter of 2020, the lowest in the last five quarters.
Only 87 million smartphone OLED panels shipped in Q2 2020
More than the flexible OLED shipments, the rigid OLED panels have been most severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Rigid OLED panel shipments dropped by 40.3 percent YoY in the second quarter. During the same period, flexible OLED panels have registered an impressive growth of 38 percent.
The increased focus on foldable smartphones over regular smartphones during the pandemic resulted in more flexible OLED panel shipments. As per the report, lower production of mid-range smartphones from Chinese manufacturers is the primary reason behind the massive decline in rigid OLED panel shipments.
Samsung has been using OLED panels in its budget smartphones for a long time. Recently, a few Chinese brands started using OLED panels in their budget smartphones. These brands are also sourcing their panels from Chinese manufacturers.
Overall OLED shipments also seen a decline of 16.6 percent
With the Chinese government’s subsidies, these manufacturers were able to provide OLED panels at 60 percent lower cost than Samsung Display. Furthermore, overall OLED shipments in Q2 2020 have only reached 170 million units. This includes smartphones, TVs, computers, and other devices.
This is a decline of 16.6 percent on a YoY basis and 13.4 percent on a quarterly basis. Even shipments of other smartphone components have declined over the past few months. With factories opening up and new launches happening frequently, shipments should soon reach back to pre-pandemic levels.
A previous report suggested the February 2020 has seen the biggest ever YoY decline in the global smartphone market. This is when the coronavirus is at a peak stage in China. The massive slump also shows how big China contributes to the global smartphone market.
Samsung has already launched the Galaxy Note 20 seires. In the next couple of months, Huawei and Apple will also unveil their new flagship smartphones. All these three brands combined will create a huge demand for the smartphone OLED panels. Also, there will be new budget smartphones with AMOLED display panels coming from other manufatcures like Xiaomi and OPPO.
