The downward cost has promoted the continuous expansion of the industry, and the growth trend of Mini LED is expected to continue.
Wang Dongyue.
Just ended"Double Eleven",Mini LEDThe backlight TV shines in large-size products,Not only occupy98inch、100InchTOP5List,in85InchTOP5There are also 3 mini LED TVs on the list。
In recent years, with the continuous decline of Mini LED manufacturing costs, the scale of Mini LED applications has continued to expand. In the first three quarters, domestic TV sales declined as a whole, down 14 year-on-year5%, but Mini LED grew against the trend, and the penetration rate exceeded 4 for the first time5%, another record high. Omdia, an evaluation agency, predicts that in 2023, the global penetration rate of Mini LED TVs is expected to surpass that of OLED TVs for the first time.
Brokerage analysis believes that with the continuous decline in the cost of Mini LED, Mini LED is expected to open up the market space, and the growth trend of the sector will continue in the future.
Demand is growing against the trend
Since the beginning of the year, domestic color TV sales have continued to decline. Aowei cloud network (**c) data shows that in the first three quarters, the cumulative sales of color TVs in China were 21.62 million units, a decrease of 13 compared with the same period in 202202%；sales were 72.7 billion yuan, down 546%。
The just-ended"Double Eleven"During the period,The domestic color TV market sold a total of 4.03 million color TVs,A year-on-year decrease of 14.5%, continuing the downward trend in the first three quarters. However,Different from the sales trend,"Double Eleven"During the period,The total retail sales of domestic color TVs reached 15.8 billion yuan,A year-on-year increase of 8.2% to achieve contrarian growth.
The decline in sales and the growth of sales against the trend are mainly due to the increase in sales area brought about by the strengthening trend of large screens of domestic color TVs, as well as the increase in product prices caused by the strong sales of high-end attribute color TVs represented by mini LED TVs.
From the perspective of sales structure, in the third quarter, the retail sales of domestic 75-inch products accounted for 187%, an increase of 62 percentage points;The retail volume of 85-inch products accounted for 55%, an increase of 33 percentage points. During the "Double Eleven" period, 75Inch and above color TVs contributed nearly 60% of the sales share.
From the perspective of product structure, among large-size TVs, the sales of mini LED TVs have increased significantly, and the proportion of sales continues to rise. According to Aowei cloud network (**c) data, in the first half of the year, China's Mini LED backlight TV sales accounted for 23%, an increase of nearly 3 times year-on-year, significantly exceeding the share of OLED in the same period;The proportion of sales reached 87%, an increase of 61 percentage point.
During the "Double Eleven" period, the penetration rate of domestic Mini LED TV sales exceeded 4 for the first time5%, doubling from the same period in 2022, continuing to accelerate the upward trend.
Data from market research firm Omdia shows similar results. According to Omdia statistics, in September 2023, global shipments of 32-inch LCD TV panels were only 3.6 million units, the lowest since January 2023;Shipments of 65-inch, 75-inch and 85-inch LCD TV panels have grown significantly. Therefore, the average size of the weighted global exceeded 52 inches for the first time, confirming the trend of large screens.
Affected by the increase in the penetration rate of Mini LED and the trend of large screens, the average sales area of domestic color TVs during the "Double Eleven" period reached 64 inches;The average sales price of products reached 3,910 yuan, an increase of 26 over the same period in 20225%, a new high in the past five years.
Technology route competition
Compared with Mini LED, OLED TV sales performed poorly in the first three quarters.
Omdia data shows that in the first three quarters of 2023, the cumulative global OLED shipments will be about 370330,000 units, down 1777%。
In recent years, South Korea and Japan-led OLED direct display and China-led Mini MicroLED have competed for the next generation of displays.
Compared with the current mainstream display technologies, although the next-generation display technology represented by OLED and MicroLED has improved the display effect, there is still a lack of large-scale mass production in terms of technology and cost.
Dongfang ** pointed out in the research report that OLED panels are gradually applied in the commercial field due to their good flexibility, high contrast and low energy consumption, but they are currently mainly used in mobile phones and wearable electronic devices. In large-size TV panels, due to the characteristics of self-luminous materials, in the case of high brightness and high-intensity use, the performance of sub-pixels decreases much faster than TFT-LCD, and due to the different attenuation rates of red, green and blue, it is easy to have color casts and screen burning.
At the same time, in terms of cost, due to the fact that the mass production process of the current OLED panel standard has not been implemented on a large scale, the yield rate and manufacturing cost are lagging behind LCD, resulting in the high level of OLED panels.
Therefore, from the perspective of panel shipment area, the first downstream application of global display panels is still TV panels, and TV panels are dominated by LCD. According to the data of the joint research network, in 2022, the shipment area of the global TV display panel market will be about 17.5 billion square meters. Among them, the shipping area of LCD panels still occupies an absolute advantage, accounting for about 96%, and the shipping area of OLEDTV panels is 75920,000 square meters, accounting for only 4%.
Compared with OLED, the LCD life cycle with the support of Mini LED technology has been further extended.
Mini LED backlight technology increases the original 50 lamp beads of traditional LCD to 1-20,000 lamp beads, and the distance between lamp beads becomes smaller, which greatly improves the density of backlight beads per unit area and achieves a more delicate display effect. With the blessing of Mini LED technology, the LCD performance has been further improved in dynamics and contrast, and even achieves the same display effect as OLED.
Moreover, in the context of the continuous decline in costs, the market size of Mini LED continues to expand.
In the research report, it was pointed out that in recent years, through the joint efforts of the upstream, midstream and downstream of the industry, the design and process difficulties of Mini LED have relatively mature solutions, and the continuous improvement of technology maturity and yield has promoted the continuous decline of the cost of Mini LED chips. For example, as of March 2023, the Mini LDRGB chip** is about 9 yuan per thousand sets, which is only about 20% of that in 2019**, a decrease of about 44% compared with 16 yuan per thousand groups in 2022.
According to Lotu statistics, in 2022, the global sales of high-end TVs will be 15 million units, accounting for 74%, including 6.9 million OLED TVs and 3.4 million Mini LED backlight TVs, which are only half of OLED TV shipments.
However, the latest data from Omdia shows that in the first three quarters of 2023, the cumulative global OLED TV shipments are about 370330,000 units, down 1777%。**Crevo expects OLED TV shipments to be less than 6 million units for the whole of 2023.
In comparison, in a single quarter in the third quarter, the retail volume and retail sales of Mini LED backlight TVs accounted for 168% and 216%, all of which far exceed the share of OLED TVs in the same period. Omdia predicts that global Mini LED TV shipments are expected to exceed 6 million units in 2023, officially surpassing OLED, or ending the high premium of Korean and Japanese brands in the global high-end TV field.
China Merchants ** expects that through the cost reduction of various core components and links such as Mini LED chips, PCB substrates, driver ICs, backlight design scheme standardization, and industrial design, it is expected to achieve an annualized cost reduction of 30% in the next three years, helping the global Mini LED TV sales penetration rate to increase from 3% in 2023 to 15% in 2026, and global shipments will increase from about 6 million units to more than 30 million units.
Among them, the penetration rate of the mini LED industry in the domestic market is expected to exceed 30%, with a market size of nearly 80 billion yuan, and the scale of the backlight module industry is about 4.5 billion to 7.5 billion yuanIn the global context, if the share of domestic brands reaches 50%, the scale of the corresponding backlight module industry will reach 11.3 billion to 18.8 billion yuan.
CITIC** believes that due to the high cost of OLED solutions, short-term MINI backlight solutions are expected to accelerate penetration, and shipments are expected to reach 6.21 million units in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 535%, and it is expected to reach 24.4 million units by 2027, with a compound growth rate of 567%。
In the medium and long term, Mini LED will benefit from mature technology and cost reduction, and continue to penetrate into the mid-to-high-end of TVs, laptops, pads, vehicles, and e-sports displays, ushering in a period of accelerated development**In 2025, the global Mini LED backlight chip and module market space will reach 4.5 billion and 39.2 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 47% from 2022 to 2025.
New applications, new needs
In addition to Mini LED backlit displays, Mini LED direct displays are also one of the few sectors in the consumer electronics industry that will show a clear recovery trend in 2023.
Mini LED direct display is currently mainly used in the 110-inch ultra-large commercial display market, including cinema display, sports display and other scenarios.
In the research report, it was pointed out that the demand for mini LED direct display was mainly concentrated in the professional display field with high performance requirements and insensitive customers, such as some conference and command and control room projects of large state-owned enterprises. In recent years, the cost of the Mini LED industry chain has dropped by more than 20% per year, and as the cost of chips continues to decline, the Mini LED display will further replace other application markets such as DLP videowall with its better performance. At the same time, the direct display screen is also expected to move from the pure high-end market to the medium and ordinary application market, such as the high-end conference scene applied in the B-side, the large-size home theater and TV scene on the C-side, etc.
It is estimated that by 2025, the domestic COB display market space is expected to increase to 10.4 billion yuan, and the compound growth rate will reach 81% from 2022 to 2025.
In addition, with the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the size and area of on-board displays are expanding rapidly, and Mini LED is facing new growth space. Dongfang ** pointed out in the research report that OLED and Mini LED backlight solutions are gradually entering the automotive field;OLED screen is becoming the new favorite of high-end models due to its light and thin size, high display contrast and good color, and Mini LED backlight is not only comparable to OLED in terms of picture quality effect, but also can make up for its brightness shortcomings, with good product stability and long life, which is more suitable for the high temperature environment in the car in summer.
According to LEDINSIDE statistics, as of the end of the third quarter, Mini LED car screens have been applied to the latest models of many well-known brands such as Ideal, SAIC Roewe, SAIC Feifan, Great Wall, NIO, Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz and so on. Experts predict that global automotive Mini LED backlight display shipments will grow to more than 150,000 pieces in 2023, a year-on-year increase of more than 20%;By 2026, shipments will exceed 2.1 million units.