High end televisions and monitors have gradually entered a stable growth range

The 2023 OLED Korea Summit, one of the world's largest OLED industry conferences, was held from April 12 to 14 at the Songdo Central Park Hotel in Incheon.

The conference invited many of the world's leading experts engaged in the upstream and downstream of the display industry to show the latest technology trends and future strategies of the head OLED panel enterprises, the research and development status of upstream luminous materials, as well as the application and expansion direction and influence factors in various fields such as AR/VR/MR, TV, IT.

Ms. Wang Yuhong, COO of RUNTO, a Chinese technology industry research agency, was invited to deliver a report titled "The Development Trend of the global high-end TV and Display Market in 2023". The following are some highlights:

Global shipments of high-end TVS reached 15 million units in 2022

In 2022, the global impact of the epidemic, major developed countries economic instability, leading to the expansion of the negative for general electronic products. Global TV brand shipments totaled 204 million units, down 5.3% year on year. Brand TV shipments are expected to recover by 1.5% to 207 million units in 2023 as the economic environment stabilizes and black swan factors become a thing of the past.

At present, TV brand enterprises accelerate the layout of differentiated display technology and actively promote the marketization of high-end display products. The market scale of high-end TV is also increasing year by year, reaching 15 million units in 2022, accounting for 7.4% of the overall market.

This includes 6.9 million OLED TVS, 3.4 million Mini LED TVS, 340,000 laser TVS, 4.2 million 80+ inch TVS, 470,000 8K TVS, and other innovative TVS such as Micro LED, curved, flexible and transparent displays.

Although the direction of evolution varies from company to company, the reality is that the display technology landscape for high-end TVS is already in place. OLED, Mini LED and laser displays will be the dominant technologies for quite some time to come. In 2023, global OLED TV shipments are expected to reach about 7.5 million units, Mini LED TVS will reach 5.7 million units, and laser TVS will touch 400,000 units.

In addition, sales of high refresh rate TVS are also prominent, with 22.6 million units shipped globally in 2022, accounting for 11 percent of the overall market, which has become one of the standard specifications for mid - to high-end TVS. In the process of product selection, high refresh rate is used as the main configuration of TV that can support the game display effect to meet the needs of home economic and entertainment electronic products. In the upstream supply chain, global shipments of high refresh rate TV panels reached 28 million in 2022, up 33% year on year, and will continue to grow by 21% in 2023.

Conclusion: China is still an active market in the world

After nearly two years of weakness, China's TV market, one of the world's most important TV regions, saw its full-year shipments reach 39.9 million units in 2022, up 2.4 percent year on year, a relatively stable performance compared to the more pessimistic forecast at the beginning of the year. China's TV market is expected to grow steadily in 2023, with shipments reaching 41.5 million units, up about 4% year on year.

In terms of brand performance, Chinese brands occupied two of the top three and three of the top five global brands in 2022.

In terms of product segmentation, in the Mini LED product market, the total market share of Chinese brand TCL and its sub-brand Thunderbird reached 18%. In the laser TV market, Hisense accounted for 41% of the global market shipments.

The stay-at-home economy reached its peak; China's high-end display phenomenal growth

Displays started moving upmarket earlier. The rise of e-sports has driven people in demand to buy or replace the machine, and the trend of market growth is very certain.

The pandemic has brought the stay-at-home economy to its peak. As a result, the display market will grow faster than expected in 2019-2021. In 2022, the market showed an expected decline due to the adjustment of global epidemic control methods, with 133 million units shipped worldwide, down 10% year-on-year.

In the Chinese market, high-end displays have shown a phenomenal growth trend, which is related to the employment situation of the Chinese population in recent years: the rise of the Internet economy, the occupational changes in the traditional job market brought about by the epidemic, the exponential increase in the number of "we media" workers, and the emergence of the application scenario of the study as the company, all drive the market demand for high-end displays. Chinese manufacturers are starting to use 4K resolution, refresh rates above 144Hz and Mini LED backlighting technology in consumer displays.

In 2022, the shipments of esports displays with a refresh rate above 144 Hz in the Chinese market reached 3.89 million units, a synchronous growth of 22.3%.

In recent years, only Apple, Microsoft, Huawei and other brands continue to invest in AIOPC, and the product pricing is relatively high, resulting in a large decline in market demand. About 1.1 million units were shipped in the Chinese market in 2022, a drop of more than 23%. However, from the perspective of product function and market demand, AIO PC is still one of the high-end display products with great market potential in the future.

Electronic paper has become an important member of the display family

In the aspect of display form, the part that can be innovated is very limited. The product has started vertical innovation, and diversified innovation has begun in the aspect of display technology in response to the changes of different needs, different groups and different professions. As a hot technology in the last two years, electronic paper has begun to be developed and used in display products.

In 2022, global shipments of e-paper displays reached 10,000 units, an increase of 96% year-on-year. Of these, 6,500 units were shipped in China, accounting for 65 percent of the global market and up 97 percent year-on-year. By 2023, the global market is expected to exceed 15,000 and the Chinese market is expected to exceed 10,000.

The full color e-paper display technology solution was launched in April with Gallery 3, which will accelerate the exploration of the end of e-paper technology. The market has launched the innovative product of "LCD+E ink two-in-one display", which has aroused the focus of attention. Electronic paper, with its low power consumption and reflective eye protection features, is favored by the majority of writers and also more in line with the changing needs of global energy structure.

The next generation: Micro LED displays

At present, various display technologies show their strengths. Diversified display technologies constantly stimulate the market potential, and the competition among technologies widens the market boundary. Consumer electronics brands such as Samsung, LG and SONY have gradually expanded their offerings in Micro LED.

In 2022, Samsung Electronics has already sold 146-inch and 110-inch MicroLED TVS. In 2023, Samsung plans to release a full range of Micro LED TVS ranging from 50 to 140 inches.

In 2022, about 2,000 units will be shipped globally, which is still in the market cultivation period. 

However, as one of the directions of the future display technology, Micro LED may usher in rapid growth after overcoming key problems such as cost and technology. Global Micro TV shipments are expected to exceed 35,000 units in 2025, accounting for 0.02 percent of the overall market.