-
- September 27, 2022
- PCB news
- (0)
- 07 mins
The Mini LED market is getting more and more dynamic
In 2022, affected by the epidemic, inflation and local hot wars, the two main battlefields of PCB industry-the mobile phone market has shrunk, computer sales have suffered setbacks. Global personal electronic consumption has experienced a recession.
However, unlike the bleak market of consumer electronics, the Mini LED market is becoming more and more lively.
Hundreds of billions of market volume, global giants hunt for Mini LED
Not every display technology can provoke the desire of global giants such as Apple, Huawei, Samsung, and LG to compete like Mini LED. But Mini LED did it. How can it easily move the situation of this huge market ?
Mini LED is defined as an LED device with a chip size between 50 and 200 μm. In layman’s terms, Mini LED is a single LED with a smaller volume. As the unit volume becomes smaller, the number of devices mounted on the display screen of the same area will be greatly increased.
The application of Mini LED technology is mainly divided into two types: one is the backlight direction, which is mainly used to help the LCD display upgrade; the other is the self-illumination direction. Mini LED self-illumination is an upgrade of small-pitch LEDs and a transition to Micro LED.
Especially in backlight applications, Mini LED can replace the mainstream LCD display backlight, with the advantages of energy saving, thin and light, ultra-high contrast, wide color gamut, second-level response speed, etc., which greatly improves the display effect of the panel and reduces the service life approaching or even surpassing OLED.
With obvious product advantages, Min LED TV is becoming the target of global head TV manufacturers.
What makes manufacturers even more unstoppable is that Mini LED allows them to see the dawn of higher profits. You must know that in recent years, the color TV industry has been affected by factors such as increasingly fierce market competition, sharp fluctuations in raw material prices, and weak consumption, and the gross profit level has continued to be diluted. When the new Mini LED TV products that can provide high gross profit turned out, it immediately became a popular track for the transformation of color TV manufacturers.
According to data, the global Mini LED TV shipments will reach about 1.3 million units in 2021, of which Samsung occupies the largest market share, with shipments reaching 1 million units, accounting for nearly 77% of the market.
In the past two or three years, TCL has launched a series of new TV products equipped with Mini LED backlights. Similarly, TCL was also the second largest manufacturer of Mini LED TVs last year after Samsung. It is reported that TCL also released the Mini LED strategy and super large screen strategy this year, and strives to make TCL smart screen the world’s first in 3 to 5 years. The sales penetration rate of TCL Mini LED in large sizes exceeds 60%. LG also sees MiniLED TVs as an important move to expand its high-end TV market share.
In addition, not only the Big Three, but also veteran TV aristocrats such as Sony and Konka, and TV upstarts such as Xiaomi are frequently testing the waters in the Mini LED TV market.
After entering 2022, with the joining of a number of new brands such as Sony, mini LED TVs are expected to continue to increase in volume in 2022. It is estimated that the global shipments of mini LED TVs in 2022 will be about 4 million units, which will be more than 2 times increase.
What makes the industry even more excited is that Huawei and Apple, as world-renowned consumer electronics manufacturers, have also successively launched Mini LED series products. As early as the spring conference in April 2021, Apple launched a new generation of iPad Pro 2021 equipped with Mini-LED technology. Three months later, Huawei also launched its own Mini LED product, the Hongmeng flagship TV V75 Super. It is Huawei’s self-developed Super Mini LED precision matrix backlight solution.
As terminal giants have adopted Mini LEDs one after another, industrial commercialization has accelerated, and all aspects of the LED industry chain have been moved. With the advancement of technology and the maturity of product yield, brand manufacturers have deployed one after another, and the penetration of Mini LED has accelerated.
It is estimated that the overall shipment of Mini LED backlight displays (TVs, notebook computers, LCD monitors) will reach 17.6 million units in 2022, with an annual growth rate of about 83%. In addition, the demand for Mini LED RGB displays in commercial displays and indoor ultra-high-definition displays is gradually increasing, the market demand for conference rooms, retail areas, high-end displays, and cinemas has been developed, and products such as all-in-one machines and advertising machines have been continuously introduced to the market.
According to Arizton data, the global Mini LED market will grow from US$150 million in 2021 to US$2.32 billion in 2024.
In addition, according to market research firm Million Insights, the global Mini LED market will reach US$5.9 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 86.6% from 2019 to 2025. According to IHS forecast, the global Micro LED display shipments will reach 15.5 million units in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 99%.
Mini LED plays an important role in the field of in vehicle display
It is worth noting that in the field of vehicle display, Mini LED is also playing an increasingly important role.
According to incomplete statistics, automobile brands such as Great Wall Motor, SAIC, Ideal, Weilai, Cadillac, and Feifan have all begun to adopt Mini LED in-vehicle displays, covering both interior and exterior applications.
Cadillac’s LYRIQ is equipped with a 33-inch ring-screen Mini LED screen; Li Auto’s large SUV, Li L9, applies Mini LED technology to a safe driving interactive screen designed with a HUD (head-up display); NIO’s electric flagship sedan ET7 Equipped with BOE’s 10.2-inch HDR Mini LED backlit digital instrument; Great Wall Motor’s “Mecha Dragon” applies Mini LED technology to the external display screen at the rear of the car.
The disclosed suppliers include LED companies Jufei Optoelectronics, Longli Technology and panel companies BOE, Innolux, etc. Among them, the Mini LED light sources on the interactive screens of Ideal L9 and SAIC Roewe RX5 are all designed and produced by Jufei Optoelectronics, and the Mini LED screens of Cadillac Ruige are supplied by Innolux. Longli Technology has entered the ideal and Feifan supply chain, BOE It supplies two car companies and three Mini LED screens of different sizes.
In general, a number of cars equipped with Mini LED screens have been released, and Mini LED is once again applied to new scenes and display fields.
China’s national and local governments strongly support the development of Mini LED
For the prosperity of an industry, it is far from enough to rely on the efforts of enterprises. They also cannot do without the strong support of the state and local governments.
It is reported that a series of policies such as the “2020 Government Work Report” and “New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)” all reflect the Chinese government’s commitment to new energy vehicles, consumer electronics, Mini LED and other PCB downstream applications. Strong support has promoted the upgrading and progress of the industry.
The reporter also learned that since July 2021, many provincial and municipal governments in China have specifically proposed to support the development of Mini/Micro LED new display technology in the special “14th Five-Year” planning strategy for the manufacturing industry.
It is worth mentioning that Shanghai has twice included the new display industry in the “14th Five-Year Plan”. In Shanghai’s “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Shanghai’s Electronic Information Industry” released on December 30 last year, in addition to strengthening and encouraging the development of LED display technology, it also incorporates Metaverse in combination with industry hot trends.
Entering 2022, Micro LED and OLED microdisplays have also been included in Yunnan’s 14th Five-Year Plan, which further illustrates the importance the Chinese government attaches to the development of LED displays.
According to the data of the industry research center, the display industry will return to the growth track in 2021, and the micro-pitch display will grow the fastest. It is estimated that the output value of the display industry is expected to exceed 50 billion in 2021 and 100 billion in 2025.
Today, China is paying more and more attention to the new display industry, and micro-pitch display technology, as an important part of it, is expected to receive more policy support in the future. It is believed that with the support of more policies and the vigorous promotion of enterprises, the development potential of the Mini LED industry will gradually increase, and the industrial scale will also expand accordingly.
PCB is a commonly used LED substrate. It has the advantages of mature technology and low cost. It is mainly promoted and used by manufacturers in the LED industry chain. As the Mini LED market becomes more and more lively, many PCB experts have entered the market one after another, and many PCB manufacturer and PCBA manufacturer regard Mini LED investment as the next important strategy.
In addition, China’s PCB industry chain is relatively mature, with sufficient technology and capacity preparation, which provides strong support for the rapid growth of Mini LED, forming a virtuous circle.
Conclusion
Although Mini LED has problems such as high technical difficulty and high unit price, more and more brands and component factories are investing. The faster the popularization of technology, the faster it is expected to drive technology improvement and cost optimization. With the gradual increase in the market space of the 100 billion-level Mini LED, it may become another main battlefield in the PCB industry.
