Omdia: Global Deformable display shipments to reach 117.7 million units by 2029

According to a research report released recently by Omdia, with the advancement of display technologies such as bending radius (BR) and light transmitrate (TR), the shipments of deformable displays will reach 22 million units in 2022 and 117.7 million units in 2029, accounting for 2.7% share of the flat panel display market.

Omdia defines convertible displays based on bending radius and light transmission and classifies them into various forms such as bendable displays, foldable displays, roll-away displays, stretchable displays, and transparent displays.

Among them, foldable displays are rapidly spreading through advanced smartphone applications and are expected to become the most mainstream form of convertible display development by 2029. Specifically, foldable display shipments will increase to 107.5 million units by 2029, accounting for a 2.5% share of the overall flat-panel display market, with a CAGR of 28.0% from 2022-2029.

According to Omdia analysis, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays are expected to be the most watched technology in the 2022-2029 period. OLED displays are self-emitting thin-layer structures that are flexible and transparent and can be used to design a variety of deformable displays (such as foldable displays).

"Over the past 20 years, most panel manufacturers have demonstrated or launched a wide variety of convertible displays," said Jerry Kang, research manager at Omdia. "While OLED displays have proven their versatility across convertible displays, other display technologies have been quite limited in terms of bend radius and light transmittance. Liquid crystal displays (LCDS), which are favored in the market for display cases and freezers where light sources can be easily embedded, will continue to dominate the transparent display market in terms of shipments."

Nowadays, the shipment growth of deformable displays has slowed down, mainly due to the limited demand of special purpose products such as foldable smartphones, rollable TVS, and transparent coolers, instead of typical consumer applications such as smartphones, smart watches, and tablets. While this segment will not grow significantly in the near term, innovative form factors can and have expanded the use of displays, as we have seen with flexible displays, which have rapidly penetrated the smartphone display market.