Huawei tapping into flat panel displays market

Huawei Technologies has set up a display driver chip business unit to tap into the booming flat panel display market, especially the OLED panel and TV segment, according to media reports.

Huawei declined to comment on the issue on Tuesday.

Its new business unit will develop driver chips to control flat panel displays including OLED (organic light-emitting diode), a key semiconductor component in the display industry. The new business unit is under Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, according to several reports.

OLED represents the most advanced display technology, widely used in the TV, smartphone and electronics device sectors. 

Chinese firms such as BOE and TCL have taken leading positions globally in display panel production. But the country is still highly depending on imports of driver chips, industry insiders said.

Huawei, which faces US technology sanctions, said recently that production of its Kirin smartphone chips would stop in September. The US barred vendors worldwide from using US technology to produce components for Huawei.

In the second quarter, Huawei’s smartphone sales surpassed Samsung to become the world’s top 1 vendor, according to several researchers. 

But Huawei’s smartphone sales will probably be lower than 2019’s level of 240 million handsets because of the ban, said Richard Yu, Huawei’s consumer business group president. 

Huawei is the world’s leading equipment maker in the telecommunications market.