LCD is the mainstream, OLED is the future. Flat panel display according to working principle and technology is mainly divided into Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Plasma Display Panel (PDP), Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED), Light Emitting Diode (LED), Electro Luminescent Display (ELD), etc. Among them, LCD, PDP, OLED widely used in televisions, monitors, mobile phones, tablet PCs and other consumer electronics, and occupy the main share of the flat panel display market. The biggest difference between OLED and LCD is that it doesn't need a backlight, which can be self-luminous. The advantage of OLED mainly include: thinner, simple process, low cost, quick response, wide viewing angle, flexible display. Because of these advantages, it is becoming the main choice for the display.

The global investment in OLED devices will be big in 2017. According to the data, the cost of OLED production equipment spending for 2016-2018 is about $23 billion. There will be $9.5 billion purchase of OLED dedicated equipment in 2017, compared to 2016 has nearly 90% increases. The equipment used to produce TFT backplanes was $4.4 billion, accounting for 47% of the total market, organic light emitting layer distillation and encapsulation equipment are $2.2 billion and $1.2 billion respectively, accounted for 23% and 13% respectively, and other equipment worth $1.7 billion, accounting for more than 18%. The key equipment for producing OLED is the distillation equipment, which is mainly occupied by Canon Tokki Company, accounting for more than half of the market in 2016.

The total investment of LCD equipment in 2016 to 2018 is ¥235.7 billion yuan. Among them, the Array equipment is ¥165 billion yuan, the Cell equipment is ¥58.9 billion yuan, and the Module equipment is ¥11.8 billion yuan.

The total investment of OLED devices in 2016-2018 is ¥148.3 billion yuan. According to the current plan and the OLED production capacity, TFT base panel production device is ¥68.2 million yuan, distillation equipment is ¥34.1 million yuan, encapsulation equipment is ¥19.27 billion yuan, and other equipment is ¥26.68 billion yuan.

China's LCD Panel Investment and OLED Development Prospect Analysis