According to a new research report, AMOLED manufacturing equipment market for Apple's use for the 5 years between 2016-2020 is expected to reach US$13 billion. According to 2016 OLED Manufacturing Equipment Annual Report, published on 7 July by UBI Research, the global Gen6 flexible AMOLED manufacturing equipment market is expected to record US$28 billion in 2016-2020. Believe it or not, 47% of this figure is for Apple's use costing US$13 billion. The figure is based on Apple applying flexible panels to some its new iPhone models to be released in 2017, and all new models released in 2018.

Apple occupies approximately 15% of the total smartphone sales with over 200 million units per year. As such, it is expected to have great impact on future flexible panel market expansion.

In 2021, global flexible AMOLED panel shipment is estimated to exceed 1 billion units. UBI Research forecasts Apple iPhone's flexible panel will occupy 20% of the total flexible AMOLED shipment in 2017, and exceed 50% in 2021.

UBI Research explains that in order to meet Apple's flexible AMOLED panel demand, the required panel production capa. is analyzed to be 30K per month in 2017, and total 300K per month in 2021. In context, that's based on Gen.6 size panels as noted below.

Furthermore, panel companies' mass production line is expanding accordingly, and Samsung Display in particular is expected to invest 30K per year directed to Apple.

In 2015 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple on the Cusp of Signing Deals with LG and Samsung for Next-Gen OLED Flexible iPhone Displays" In that report we noted that "LG Display is currently discussing about first supplying 30,000 flexible OLED panels per month based on size of Gen.6 board to Apple. After securing stable yields, then it is going to supply minimum of 45,000 sheets to maximum of 60,000 sheets per month. LG is expected to be ready to be Apple's second supplier sometime in 201l8.

On Monday Patently Apple posted a report titled "Samsung is spinning off their OLED Display Division Due to Apple's OLED iPhone Business." So today's UBI report would strongly support that development. The report further noted that "Applied Materials is expected to show Q2 display manufacturing equipment sales increased by almost 6 times bolstered by OLED market growth."

In the end, today's trend as noted by Applied Materials and the forecast by UBI Research shows us that the need to meet Apple's demand for OLED displays from 2017 through to 2018 is simply staggering.

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