Introduction: Global LCD industry shift and automotive intelligence together to promote the rapid development of China’s LCD panel industry, which will bring a continuous increase in demand for backlight modules, China’s backlight module industry has greater potential for development.
LCD Panel
LCD panel backlight module consists of a backlight light source, light guide, optical film, and a plastic frame, which is an important component of LCD display panel. As the backlight module has technology-intensive and labor-intensive attributes, with abundant high-skilled labor advantage China is attracting the global LCD panel industry to the domestic rapid transfer.
01、global LCD panel production capacity to accelerate the transfer to China, driving the development of China’s backlight module industry
From LCD application to the present, the global LCD panel industry capacity transfer has gone through three periods, 2000 Japan dominated the global LCD industry; 2000 – 2010, Japan’s production capacity to South Korea and Taiwan; 2010 to the present, Japanese manufacturers gradually withdraw from the LCD panel industry, production capacity began to transfer to mainland China, so far, mainland China LCD production capacity has occupied the global half of the world.
LCD panel industry market share by country
In recent years, South Korea’s Samsung and LG display will shift their business focus to OLED, and will gradually shut down their LCD production lines and withdraw from the LCD panel industry; at the time of South Korean manufacturers’ withdrawal, domestic enterprises are stepping up new construction to expand LCD production capacity.
BOE, Huaxing photoelectric, Huike, CEC in 2020 – 2021, a total of eight 7 generation LCD production lines completed and put into operation, and domestic panel manufacturers have further expansion plans, the next few years domestic LCD production capacity will continue to increase.
LCD panel manufacturers tend to choose the nearby supporting module suppliers for the safety of the key component supply chain and cost reduction considerations. LCD panel production capacity transfer to China will bring opportunities to domestic backlight module manufacturers and drive the development of the domestic backlight module industry.
In recent years, South Korea LCD production capacity withdrawal plan and domestic LCD production capacity to add plans
02、car display is emerging, bringing new demand for backlight modules
The future of the car will pay more attention to the human driving experience, to the intelligent development, which will bring the increasing demand for car display. On the one hand, the number of car displays gradually increased, for example, the instrument panel, rearview mirror, central control platform more to display the way, the passenger and rear position with entertainment display. On the other hand, the car display is constantly to a large screen, multi-screen development, especially in high-end models, the large display has become standard, for example, Tesla Model S screen size of 17 inches, Mercedes-Benz A-class car configuration of two 10.5-inch display.
Car display
At the same time, there is also a huge demand for new cars in China. Although China’s car sales have reached 25 million, the current per capita car ownership in China is only a quarter of the developed countries, the future potential for new car demand is still very large. Therefore, China’s car display market growth potential is large, which will directly drive the domestic backlight module demand continues to increase.
03、from the market development trend, the traditional medium-sized backlight module field manufacturers more development advantages
According to the terminal application size, backlight module can be divided into large, medium, and small size, of which small size backlight module is mainly used in smartphones, wearable devices, and other terminals, the medium size used in notebook computers, tablet PCs, car screens and other terminals, the large size is mainly used in LCD TV.
From the market competition pattern, the domestic backlight module enterprises are deeply plowed in their respective competitive advantage in the field of segmentation, including Baoming technology, Longli technology mainly layout small size cell phone display field, Hanbo high-tech, Weishi electronics mainly layout in the size of car display and notebook computer field, Rui Yi photoelectric and photoelectric in each field have layout.
From the industry development trend, smartphone display is transitioning to OLED, LCD TV market is gradually saturated, the future of large size and small size backlight module market potential is relatively small; and the future of the car display market potential is huge, by the backlight module manufacturers are unanimously optimistic, are currently accelerating the layout ( see Table 2 ). Focusing on the traditional medium-sized backlight module field, Hanbo Hi-Tech and Weishi Electronics have significant advantages in core technology patents, downstream customer resources, process experience accumulation, production costs, etc., and have more development advantages in the future.
04、Conclusion
The current global LCD display panel industry is rapidly moving to China, which brings development opportunities to China’s backlight module industry. In addition, automotive intelligence will also bring a continuous increase in demand for medium-sized car displays, the first to enter the field of medium-sized backlight module manufacturers with its customer resources, core technology, scale efficiency, and other advantages will be more beneficial.