Of the three largest China-based small- to medium-size TFT-LCD panel makers, BOE Technology will ship 50% of its smartphone panels to Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, 14.8% to China-based vendor Lenovo and 11.9% to China-based white-box vendors in 2015, Digitimes Research estimates.
Tianma Micro-electronics will ship 21.8% and 17.7% of its smartphone panels to Huawei Device and Lenovo respectively, while InfoVision Optoelectronics (IVO) will rely on independent handset design houses for smartphone panel shipments.
Producing smartphone panels at its 6G factory in northern China, BOE is competitive in terms of production efficiency and pricing but lags behind in production of LTPS TFT-LCD panels and this will be unfavorable for its competition for orders for high-end smartphone panels in 2015, Digitimes Research indicated. In contrast, Tianma is competitive in high-end smartphone panels due to relatively high yield rates in production of LTPS and on-cell applications.
Huawei, Lenovo, Coolpad, ZTE, TCL Communication Technology and Xiaomi Technology - the six largest China-based smartphone vendors - are expected to mainly adopt panels produced by South Korea- and Japan-based makers for high-end models in 2015.
BOE, Tianma and IVO are expected to focus competition in 2015 on orders for smartphone panels used in mid-range and entry-level models.
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