Chinese OLED material company AG-RAY has started the largest OLED material project in China to localize supply of the materials, according to local media reports.
The company is building a new OLED material factory at city of Meishan in Sichuan province where it is based in.
The factory, once complete, will produce 30 metric tonnes of high purity OLED materials and 200 metric tonnes of other functional materials per year.
Combined, it will be producing around 4 billion yuan worth of materials a year that will be supplied for use in handsets and TV screens.
AG-RAY is aiming to supply 25% of the OLED material demand from local display panel makers.
Currently, these companies only secured around 5% of the materials it needed from local suppliers.
AG-RAY is expecting a sales of 30 million yuan from the sales of the materials this year, less than 1% of its goal of 4 billion yuan.
Chinese panel companies are expanding their investment into large OLED panels and 6th generation flexible small OLED panels.
BOE is investing in its lines in Chengdu, Chongqing and Mianyang. Tianma is investing in its lines at Wuhan and Xiamen.
Visionox has OLED lines in Guan, Hubei province. CSOT has an OLED factory in Wuhan. TCL is planning to start building the world’s first inkjet 8.5th generation OLED line at Guangzhou.
China’s display panel industry can currently procure over 40% of the materials it needs locally, but this takes into account the liquid crystal display (LCD) industry. In OLED, the ratio is far lower.
According to Omdia, this year, Chinese panel companies will control a combined market share of 36.3% in displays (both LCD and OLED), while South Korean companies will secure 37.3%.
In OLED alone, South Korea is expected to have a market share of 88.4% while China will hold 10.1%.