The industrial sector should further enhance its capacity for innovative development, adhere to supply-side structural reform, shift the focus of industrial development from accelerating the construction of production lines to improving the quality and efficiency of development, and properly handle the relationship among quality, speed and scale.

After more than 50 years of development, with the iterative upgrading of technology, the application scope of touch screens has expanded from the initial US military to the current mass consumer field. The touch display market has entered a period of rapid development characterized by product diversification and brand diversification.

Benefiting from the development of the global electronic information industry, the market size of the global liquid crystal display module industry has shown a continuous growth trend. China has become one of the most important regions for global LCD panel shipments, and domestic enterprises such as BOE have also occupied a place in the industry.

Form integration, high-definition display, product flexibility, diverse applications, and domestic materials are the five major trends for the future development of the touch screen industry.

From the military to the general public

The touchscreen originated in the United States in the 1960s and was developed by the US military for military purposes. After more than 50 years of development, touch screens have now been widely used, but it was not until after 2000 that they truly entered a mature stage.

In the display industry, the first generation of technology, CRT (Glass Picture Tube Display), enjoyed its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s. Subsequently, LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology gradually grew and was applied in the field of micro and small screen displays such as calculators.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, LCD began to be applied in medium and large-sized display fields, and its application areas further expanded, gradually replacing CRT in many fields. After entering the year 2000, LCD defeated other display technologies in terms of technology and performance, and gradually showed an advantage in price. Nowadays, LCD has become the most widely used display technology.

The first-generation iPhone in 2007 ushered in the era of touch display for smart phones.

In 2010, with the explosive growth of smart phones and the advent of tablet computers, the core position of capacitive touch operation and high-resolution display technology in smart mobile terminals was recognized. The release of the first-generation iPad enabled touch screens to expand in the medium and large-sized product market.

With the rise of the smart phone market, the high growth of tablet computers, the heating up of the ultrabook concept, and the wide popularity of smart wearable devices and smart in-vehicle products, the global touch display market has entered a period of rapid development featuring product diversification and brand diversification.

The opening of the smart terminal market has not only made touch display a hot topic in the field of consumer electronics, but also one of the important areas for the development of display technology.

Two major technologies are dominant

Touch module products can be divided into two major categories: external hanging type and embedded type.

Among them, the external touch module is further divided into "glass type" and "film type". The difference between the "glass type" and the "film type" lies in the different base materials of the touch layer, that is, glass and film are respectively used as the base materials.

Embedded type refers to the touch layer being embedded inside the liquid crystal module, mainly divided into two schemes: On-Cell and In-Cell. On-Cell embeds the touch layer between the color filter substrate and the polarizer, while In-Cell embeds the touch layer between the liquid crystal pixels. The difficulty of in-cell is higher than that of On-Cell.

Overall, the advantages of the "external hanging" touch solution are mature technology, simple manufacturing process and low cost. The greatest advantage of the "embedded" type is that it conforms to the trend of thinning and lightness. In recent years, with the maturation of the "embedded" process and the improvement of yield, this solution has been widely applied.

With various display devices entering people's lives and work, different display technologies are also gradually developing: CRT as the first-generation display technology, FPD (flat panel Display technology) as the second generation, and OLED as the third generation.

Flat panel display technology mainly includes liquid crystal displays (LCD, which is generally divided into three types: TN/STN/TFT), plasma displays (PDP), organic light-emitting diode displays (OLED), vacuum fluorescent displays (VFD), projection displays (LCOS), etc.

Among them, LCD and OLED are the two mainstream flat panel display technologies that are developing now and in the future. So far, LCD is the most widely used display technology. Compared with traditional CRT, LCD is not only small in size, thin in thickness, light in weight, low in energy consumption and low in operating voltage, but also has no flicker and can be directly matched with integrated circuits.

OLED is a display screen made of organic light-emitting diodes. Due to its excellent characteristics such as self-luminous organic electroexcitation photodiodes, no need for a backlight, high contrast, thin thickness, wide viewing Angle, fast response speed, suitability for flexible panels, wide operating temperature range, and relatively simple structure and manufacturing process, it is regarded as an emerging application technology for the next generation of flat panel displays.

Chinese enterprises are gradually becoming the main force

At present, the world's major manufacturers of touch display panels are mainly concentrated in Japan, South Korea, the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

The touch panel industry chain mainly consists of upstream materials - glass substrates, PET films, ITO targets, midstream material processing - chemical materials (adhesives, flexible circuits, control ics) and panel manufacturing, downstream touch modules and display modules, as well as various electronic products in the end. Generally speaking, the touch display industry chain that the electronics industry focuses on mainly consists of the midstream sensors and panels, as well as the downstream touch display modules.

With the advancement of technology and the emergence of new application fields, the flat panel display market has been growing steadily and gradually divided into three sub-markets: (1) The traditional market dominated by liquid crystal technology. Due to the maturity of TFT-LCD panels and the gradually improved cost advantages, the large-screen display market is still dominated by liquid crystal, and this market remains the largest market for flat panel displays at present; (2) The market where liquid crystal and OLED technologies coexist is mainly composed of small and medium-sized display screens for mobile phones and tablet computers. Due to the unique advantages of both liquid crystal and OLED technologies, the two types of display panels jointly share this market. (3) Emerging markets, which have emerged along with the development of consumer electronics. In recent years, with the development of technology and the improvement of user demands, some new electronic consumer goods have been commercialized due to the characteristics of OLED technology, such as wearable devices, curved screen mobile phones, VR devices, etc. This part of the market is mainly dominated by OLED panels and is a new market for flat panel displays.

Benefiting from the development of the global electronic information industry, the market size of the global liquid crystal display module industry has shown a continuous growth trend. In the 2018 global LCD panel shipment ranking, BOE, LGD, Innolux, Samsung and CSOT ranked among the top five globally. China has become one of the most important regions for global LCD panel shipments.

In 2018, the global market size of liquid crystal display modules is expected to reach approximately 745 billion US dollars. There are a large number of domestic liquid crystal module enterprises. Compared with liquid crystal panels, the technical barriers of liquid crystal modules are relatively low. However, with the brand aggregation of smart terminals, the agglomeration effect of the touch display module industry chain has become obvious.

In terms of shipment volume and scale, the top three domestic LCD module manufacturers are BOE, Tianma, and Heli Technology (002217), while the top three touch module manufacturers are TPK Technology, O-film Technology (002456), and Heli Technology.

Five major development trends

In the future, touch display will develop in five major directions: form integration, high-definition display, product flexibility, application diversification, and domestic material production.

From the perspective of visual presentation effects and other aspects, the integration of forms is the future development trend.

As a new type of medium for human-computer interaction input, the touch screen display is simpler, more direct and more convenient for input compared with the traditional display, keyboard and mouse input methods. Whether it is various products such as mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, or inquiry machines and KTV jukeboxes, they all possess touch display technology. It has become very popular in our daily lives and has become an indispensable part.

Full-lamination display screens seamlessly bond the protective glass, touch screen and display screen together, eliminating the air layer between the display screen and the touch screen and making the screen thinner. To present the visual effect perfectly, it looks more beautiful, reduces the probability of dust entering, makes the picture more transparent, enhances the display effect, and also makes the screen thinner. From this perspective, full lamination is more aesthetically pleasing and practical.

A fully laminated display screen is one where the touch screen and the display screen are physically completely bonded together, while TDDI, or the touch and display driver, are integrated. At present, the touch and display functions of smart phones are independently controlled by two chips. However, the most distinctive feature of TDDI is that it integrates the touch chip and the display chip into a single chip. TDDI represents another product innovation in the field of smart phones. Its fundamental demand lies in the two-way expansion of display functions and performance. TDDI technology is an extension of display functions, representing the future development trend from complex functional module combinations to single multi-functional integrated modules. The characteristic that display effects are increasingly focused on people's subjective experience is precisely the goal that TDDI chip manufacturers are committed to achieving. TDDI chips can reduce display components, lower complexity and costs, and simplify the supply chain production process. TDDI chips are also an important tool for mobile phone manufacturers to achieve narrower bezels and full-screen displays.

Fingerprint recognition technology is the mainstream technology of biometric identification and is widely used in identity verification in various industries. Currently, devices with fingerprint functions all require a physical key to scan fingerprints. With the development of touch display chips, touch and display are highly integrated. The future development trend is to complete fingerprint recognition at any position on the screen and embed fingerprint recognition into touch display devices. This way, there will be no limitations for equipment manufacturers when conducting industrial design of equipment. The integration of fingerprint recognition and touch display technology is becoming increasingly mature, and its application will also become more and more widespread.

With the improvement of user demands, high-definition display is the key to meeting market needs.

With the official commercialization of 5G, the era of 5G+8K has officially arrived. The development of the Internet era, the transformation of consumer concepts and the continuous progress of new display technologies have led consumers to put forward higher and broader demands for the visual effect and application of LCD displays.

The common 2K display technology and the emerging 4K display technology can no longer fully meet the ultra-high-definition display demands of the consumer group for large-scale sports events, telemedicine, security monitoring, etc. 8K ultra-high-definition display is regarded as the highest standard of the future ultra-high-definition display era and has become a high ground that the display industries of various countries are competing to occupy.

According to the current plan, most panel manufacturers in the early stage of development will develop 60Hz 8K displays based on amorphous silicon (a-Si) technology, while in the next stage, panel manufacturers may also develop 120Hz 8K displays based on oxide technology. The latter has a better opening ratio and lower power consumption.

According to market research firm IHS, 8K ultra-high-definition LCD TVS will first achieve explosive application in China. It will exceed 1.4 million units in 2019 and surpass 2 million units in 2020.

In the coming years, display technology will develop in the directions of increasingly higher resolution technology, wider color gamut, higher contrast, and faster response time.

Product flexibility has become a key investment direction for major manufacturers.

At present, all major panel manufacturers around the world are investing in OLED production lines to increase the capacity of flexible OLeds. Since 2018, more than 20 new 6th generation flexible OLED production lines have been added globally, among which 10 are in China.

According to data from Qunzhi Consulting, the flexible OLED market will maintain a high growth rate in the next five years, with a compound annual growth rate as high as 33%. The market size of flexible OLED will exceed that of rigid OLED in 2019, and the entire flexible smart phone market size will reach 700 million pieces by 2022.

According to DSCC data, the shipment volume of flexible OLED is expected to exceed that of rigid OLED in 2021, maintaining an average annual growth rate of over 20%.

Although different institutions have varying predictions on the market size of flexible OLED, they all hold a consistent view that the flexible OLED market will expand rapidly and become the mainstream trend of OLED displays.

Flexible screens may become the new trend of touch screens on mobile devices in the future. OLED, with its multiple advantages and support for folding and flexible display, has become a hot topic in the current display industry.

Meanwhile, with the development of technology, the diversified characteristics of touch display application fields will be further highlighted.

For the touch display industry with a huge industrial chain, it has received significant investment from all sides, which has led to rapid technological progress. Under the tide of "Internet Plus", the era of the Internet of Everything has arrived. People's demand for intelligent operation has rapidly increased. More and more display terminals rely on touch screens for input, which has also given rise to greater market potential for touch displays.

With the rapid upgrading and replacement of downstream products, touch displays are spreading from small sizes to large sizes. Such as touch screen displays used in electronic classrooms, touch screens used in meeting rooms, digital signage, etc., the industries involved cover retail, healthcare, government, enterprises, education, transportation, etc.

With the continuous upgrading of intelligent in-vehicle systems in recent years, the ordinary LCD screens have been upgraded to touch screens, and cars equipped with touch display technology are constantly emerging. Due to the gradual electronicization and intelligence of automobiles, touch screens, display screens and the like have a very broad market and development prospects.

The application of retail digital signage demonstrates the efficient informatization of touch screens. Besides the traditional information push, it can also create an interactive shopping experience with customers, such as virtual fitting rooms and intelligent recognition.

Meanwhile, the education and commercial sectors demand technological improvements in the application of large-sized touch displays for touch screens. In the field of education, emphasis will be placed on multi-touch, multi-screen interaction, intelligent sharing, etc. When applied in enterprise meeting rooms, it will emphasize rich functions, strong compatibility, mobile operation, remote management, etc. With the integration of trendy elements such as the Internet of Things and mobile Internet, the display technology that emphasizes the hardware level is gradually shifting to a comprehensive solution that highlights soft innovation. Providing users with a perfect interactive experience has become the core of touch display.

Virtual reality and augmented reality are also important fields for the future development of display technology. They require better interaction between people and smart devices, which demands the integration of some different technologies.

In addition, accelerating the penetration of upstream industries is currently one of the strategies of some domestic enterprises, and the localization of touch screen materials is gradually becoming a trend.

Domestic touch panel enterprises will gradually recognize the importance of upstream industries in the increasingly fierce market competition, and thus accelerate their penetration into the upstream industrial chain. Investment and mergers and acquisitions in fields such as glass substrates, ITO films, mask plates, photoresists, polarizing films, and organic luminescent materials will further increase, and the localization degree of related products is expected to be significantly enhanced.

As the international environment becomes increasingly complex, competition in the new display industry will further intensify. Although China's new display industry has made considerable progress in recent years, the following problems still exist: the proportion of high-end products is insufficient and the product structure needs to be adjusted; The pace of OLED mass production still needs to be accelerated, and the R&D capabilities need to be enhanced. The upstream industrial chain has obvious shortcomings, and there are potential safety hazards in the industry. The panel prices have dropped significantly, and the operating pressure on enterprises has been constantly rising, among other internal and external issues.

To safeguard China's new display industry