The shipment of OLED panels for smartphone nosedived in the second quarter of 2020 to 87 million units, UBI Research said on Monday.
It is a fall of 23.1% from the same time period a year ago and a drop of 17% from the first quarter of 2020.
The shipment decline came from low shipment of rigid OLED panels.
Shipment for rigid OLED panels dropped 40.3% year over year in the second quarter.
But this was offset somewhat by the rise in flexible OLED panel shipment which grew 38% from a year prior.
The drop in rigid OLED panel shipment was caused by Chinese smartphone makers producing less mid-tier smartphones during the quarter, UBI Research said.
They did focus on flagship smartphones however, which helped shipment of flexible OLED panels grow, the research firm said.
The shipment for all OLED panels, which includes those for TVs and PCs, stood at 170 million units during the second quarter. It is a drop of 16.6% from a year prior and a decline of 13.4% from the previous quarter.
The COVID-19 pandemic that effected all end-product sales was the cause, the research firm said.
Chinese smartphone makers were all using OLED panels for their flagship smartphone models, UBI Research CEO Choong Hoon Yi said, and Chinese display makers’ OLED technology has improved.
These display makers are offering their panels at 60% of the price that Samsung Display is offering, Yi said, as these companies received subsidies from the Chinese government which allows them to offer lower prices for goods.
