OLED panel handset market penetration to slow in 2022 due to supply and price factors

According to a research report by Counterpoint Research, OLED panels will account for 42% of the global smartphone panel market in 2021, up 10 percentage points from 2020. OLED smartphone panel growth is expected to slow in 2022, with only a 2 percentage point increase in market share.

The report explains that the slowdown in OLED panel market growth is related to the lower average selling price of 5G smartphones. Due to supply shortages, prices of key components such as wafers are rising. The smartphone industry is facing lower prices but higher costs due to the slowdown in international economic growth and increased competition in the market, and the pressure of sluggish consumption.

Due to the above factors, manufacturers who urgently need to reduce production costs will maximize the competitiveness of panel prices. Tracking data shows that the share of OLED panels for 5G smartphones reached 80% in the fourth quarter of 2021, already down 2 percentage points from the same period in 2020.

The supply and price of OLED panels are also obstacles. OLED panels can directly replace cheap smartphone LCD panels, but the global supply of OLED panels is extremely limited, and investment is focused on high-end soft OLED panels instead of less profitable OLED panels, making the supply of OLED panels insufficient to fully replace LCD panel demand.

Soft OLED panels, the preferred choice for high-end smartphones, are now significantly lower in price than in 2020, and the adoption rate is on the rise.

China’s birth rate hit a record low, experts: The economy may not overtake the United States

According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China’s national birth rate will be 7.52 per 1,000 in 2021, a decline for five consecutive years. Experts observe that the low birth rate in China is an irreversible trend, and the weakening of the labor force may make it difficult for the economy to overtake the United States.

According to the Voice of America (VOA) report, China is the world’s second largest economy. Institutions such as the British Economic and Business Research Center and the Japan Economic Research Center have estimated that China’s economic aggregate may surpass that of the United States in 2028. However, the decline of China’s labor force will hit the economy, which will become a variable to challenge the dominance of the US economy.

Yi Fuxian, a scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States, said that if China is to surpass the U.S. in economic aggregate by 2028, the annual economic growth rate in the next six years must exceed 7%; The weakening that began in 2014, coupled with the rapidly ageing population, makes this target unlikely to be achieved.

Yi Fuxian predicts that between 2030 and 2035, China’s population data will be inferior to that of the United States, which means that China’s economic growth rate will start to be lower than that of the United States in 2035. “China’s economy will never surpass the United States.” Yi Fuxian said frankly that China’s population data has long been suspected of irrigation, which will lead to the Chinese government’s misjudgment of the situation and will also affect the United States’ China policy.

The National Bureau of Statistics of China released statistics on January 17. In 2021, there will be 10.62 million births, 10.14 million deaths, a net annual population increase of 480,000, and a natural growth rate of only 0.34 per thousand. The number of births and the net increase in the population both hit new lows since 1962, and the birth rate also fell below 10 per 1,000 again since 2020.

The report quoted Li Mingxuan, an associate professor at the Department of Political Economy of National Sun Yat-Sen University, who analyzed that this shows that most of the Chinese young people are not confident in their future development due to their “flatteningism” (not buying a house, not buying a car, not getting married, not having children, not spending money). , The huge gap between the rich and the poor, high housing prices, and low wages all make the younger generation feel a sense of relative deprivation and see no hope for the future.

Chen Jianfu, director of the Mainland China Research Institute of Tamkang University, pointed out that the low birth rate means that China’s labor force will become increasingly insufficient, which may force domestic industries to be restructured, labor-intensive industries may withdraw from China one by one, or foreign companies will have to pay relatively high labor costs. Labor costs. Population issues are critical and will involve labor costs and industrial restructuring.

Nvidia: Graphics card shortages may ease in the second half of this year

It’s been more than a year since Nvidia’s RTX 30-series graphics cards were launched. But until now, the phenomenon of graphics card shortage is still very serious. The price of graphics cards has also remained high all the way, making many enthusiasts who need to install the computer to complain.

So when will the shortage of graphics card chips be alleviated? NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress said at the 24th Needham Growth Conference recently: “Looking back to 2021, we have seen strong demand for GeForce graphics cards, and NVIDIA’s graphics cards continue to be in short supply. The supply of NVIDIA products will be Get better in the second half of 2022.”

While it’s not the first time Nvidia’s explanation for when the out-of-stock phenomenon will ease, there are still some possibilities this time around.

Media Tom’s Hardware said that Nvidia is expected to officially release the RTX 40 series graphics card this year, and when the RTX 40 series graphics card is released, it may alleviate the current shortage of graphics cards to a certain extent.

It is currently reported that the NVIDIA RTX 40 series will be manufactured using TSMC’s N5 5nm process technology, which is now very mature and has a high yield. Due to the strong demand for graphics cards, Nvidia may have increased its orders for TSMC production as much as possible. TSMC has invested tens of billions of dollars in N5 process capacity in 2021. These new lines are expected to start up this year. At that time, the shortage of advanced process wafers will be greatly alleviated.

In addition, according to VideoCardz, Nvidia is preparing a new RTX 3060Ti graphics card, equipped with the GA103 core to solve the problem of insufficient shipments of this model.

VideoCardz revealed that the RTX 3060 Ti currently on sale is based on the GA104 GPU and is the least available model in the RTX 30 series. Some of Nvidia’s partners say they haven’t shipped an RTX 3060 Ti for several months as Nvidia prioritizes the more expensive RTX 3070 series, which also features a GA104 GPU.