(Yicai) Nov. 28 -- Global shipments of vehicle displays should surpass 200 million units this year for the first time ever due to the emergence of smart cars, according to British consultancy Omdia.

Shipments should reach 204 million this year, Wu Youxiang, chief analyst at the London-headquartered company, told Yicai at the Tianma Global Innovation Conference 2023 yesterday. Tianma Microelectronics is the world’s largest supplier of low-temperature polysilicon liquid-crystal display screens for mobile phones.

For now, 70 percent of vehicle displays are still traditional amorphous silicon LCD products while LTPS LCD screens, which provide higher picture resolution, make up 20 percent of the total, and the share of organic light-emitting diode displays is in the single digits, per Omdia.

However, more carmakers are moving to LTPS LCD products from the traditional LCD screens, and in the first half, the share of LTPS LCDs reached 25 percent, Wu said.

Even Tianma is shifting its capacity to LTPS LCD screens to cater to the automotive industry's demand amid sluggish handset shipments and the increased competition in OLED flexible screens. But new technologies are emerging.

"This year, there have been onboard flexible OLED screen products, and high-end luxury cars are turning to OLED screens," Wu said, adding that car microLED screens are still in the phase of concept testing.

During the conference, Tianma released a variety of onboard display products to grasp market opportunities brought by automotive intelligence.

Tianma's shipments of onboard LTPS LCD products are showing a rapid growth momentum and shipments of automotive OLED and mini-LED backlight LCD screens could rise quicker in the next few years, per Liu Jinquan, deputy general manager of the Shenzhen-based firm's onboard display division.

Tianma's factory in Xiamen is churning out sixth-generation flexible OLED panels and the firm invested CNY1.1 billion (USD150 million) in building a micro-LED panel production line in the same southeastern city last year. The micro-LED facility should start producing small batches of products in 2025 or 2026, per Xi Kerui, vice president of Tianma's research institute. He predicts that micro-LED will first be used in displays for public information, cars, and wearables.

Li Auto, a Chinese electric vehicle startup, has already been using OLED screens and as display technologies mature, micro-LED panels could introduce disruptive application scenarios, Li Juan, senior director of research and development, said at the same event.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine