(Yicai Global) April 13 -- Global demand for active matrix organic light-emitting diode panels used in smartphones is expected to rise 9 percent this year, despite the overall negative impact of Covid-19 on handset sales, as market penetration of these thinner, lighter and more energy efficient screens deepens, according to a leading technology market researcher.

Flexible displays for foldable smartphones are the driving force behind this growth, London-based Omdia said today. This year should see a 50 percent increase in deliveries of flexible AMOLED screens, it added.

Despite mobile phone sales dropping by an estimated 13 percent in 2020, 513 million smartphone AMOLED panels will ship, up from 471 million in 2019, it said. US tech giant Apple is expected to equip three of its iPhone models with AMOLED screens this year compared with two last year. More Chinese handset makers are also set to migrate their product lines to the display technology, Omdia said.

Foldable phones started to appear in the market only last year. As such, unstable shipments of flexible displays are normal in these early stages as products adapt to the new technologies, sales prices vary and consumer acceptance wavers, Omdia's Principle Analyst Wu Rongbing told Yicai Global. These teething issues should improve this year, so prospects are promising, he added.

By contrast, sales of rigid AMOLED panels and flat-panel displays using low temperature polycrystalline silicon-thin film transistors for smartphones are expected to fall 12 percent.

Last year, shipments of rigid AMOLED displays rose 26 percent to 313 million from a year earlier, while sales of flexible panels fell 1 percent to 158 million.

Editor: Kim Taylor