2024 LED large screen market trend summary: innovation and overseas demand dance together

In 2024, the domestic LED direct display large screen industry experienced a new round of "market and technology" overtaking window. In the industry technological progress, such as the implementation of MIP technology, the development of emerging markets, such as the growth of demand in the film and television industry, the exploration of overseas markets, such as the rise of demand in emerging countries in the south, etc. It has formed a strong "continuity" momentum for the development of the industry, and has also promoted the performance of mainstream brands in the industry.

1. Increment, the east is not bright, the west is bright

In 2024, the global demand for LED direct display industry shows a huge structural difference. From the perspective of total market demand, the global LED direct display maintained a high single-digit growth, with an increase of 8-10 percentage points; but the downward trend in prices also eroded the growth ability of sales. Therefore, LED direct display, in the three major applications of LED: lighting, LCD backlight, and direct display, the performance is in the middle - the lighting market continues to hover in the trough; LCD backlight is growing rapidly thanks to the development of large-size LCD demand and mini LED backlight.

From the perspective of geographical structure, the overall demand of the domestic LED market in 2024 will remain stable. Industries that rely on financial and cultural tourism funds will encounter certain market pressure. Emerging application demand effectively fills the lack of traditional demand momentum. In developed markets such as Europe, America and other developed countries, although there is a "peak sports market" in the first half of 2024, compared with the growth in the past few years, the overall demand for LED direct display in 2024 will be more suppressed, and the growth rate will slow down significantly. However, emerging markets such as South East Asia and the Middle East have shown a trend of "new and old LED direct display applications", becoming a global highlight.

From the perspective of application scenario types, the global market will perform well in new scenarios, new applications, and new specifications in 2024. High-end technologies, such as ultra-high definition, naked eye 3D, AI +, micro-pitch, COB, and other technology products have accelerated their implementation and maintained growth. Especially, such as LED movie screens, P0.7 specification indoor screens, COB screens above P1.5 specifications, and LED crystal particle products with sizes below 100 microns have achieved at least double the demand increase. However, traditional scenes and traditional products have performed differently in different regions. Especially outdoor LED large screens, the demand in China and Europe and the United States has encountered some pressure.

From the perspective of resistance and motivation on the demand side, innovative display technology, cost reduction, and application display content upgrade in 2024 are the main driving forces. Macroeconomic cyclical lows, the impact of the US dollar interest rate hike cycle and geopolitical conflicts, the intelligence of consumption, and the impact of networking on offline large-screen display demand are the main resistance on the demand side of the industry.

Overall, the global consumption of LED direct display products in 2024 showed "ups and downs", but it still maintained growth and continued to improve in the long-term trend. The specific market structure clearly reflects the characteristics of "the east is not bright and the west is bright". Brand manufacturers, by working hard to tap the potential of bright and trying to stabilize the weak and cyclical demand scenarios of not bright, have basically realized the vision of "maintaining quantity and improving quality" at the beginning of the year.

2. The outdoor LED direct display market ushered in a new pattern

As the "most mature" LED large-screen application field, the outdoor LED direct display market will encounter the greatest "resistance under macroeconomic influence" in 2024.

Faced with market pressure, industry companies have generally adopted the three strategies of "stabilizing channels, reducing costs, and improving quality", combined with the accelerated development of overseas emerging consumer markets. Among them, improving quality is the main "gain point for outdoor LED large screen applications in 2024" for industry companies.

On the one hand, promote the combination of smaller pitch indicators and ultra-high definition display needs; promote the development of small and medium-sized outdoor high definition and ultra-high definition screen applications. Even the introduction of high-end technologies such as COB and MIP into the outdoor market, combined with virtual pixel technology, comprehensively explore the outdoor LED direct display effect improvement space, reflecting the general trend of more mature technologies based on indoor applications spreading to the outdoor market.

On the other hand, outdoor LED direct display is starting from the content, and has revealed more new ideas in naked eye 3D creativity, digital human creativity, and interactive creative applications. In fact, the main value of traditional outdoor LED applications focusing on commercial retail advertising is increasingly being replaced by "creative content". In particular, the global development of e-commerce has affected the overall competitiveness of offline retail formats, driving the decline in demand for traditional advertising large screens, which in turn has brought users to actively seek new value.

Content upgrades, cultural tourism functional display, creative immersion space display, and feature display superimposed on multiple merchandise label content are becoming outdoor LED direct display, the real future blue ocean.

The large screen of retail advertising has become a large screen of cultural creativity. This trend is accelerating under the macroeconomic pressure of 2024. This also drives the sublimation of the capabilities of outdoor LED direct display large screen channels and the establishment of long tail service value. However, when this transformation will be finally completed, and what kind of total and structural characteristics will be presented, is still unknown.

3. Indoor small-pitch LED demand, iterative new play

In 2024, the indoor small-pitch LED market as a whole will show a double upgrade spiral of "technological innovation" and "application innovation". Among them, the increase in the proportion of products below P2.0 and the proportion of products below P1.0 is the most significant indicator of demand upgrade.

From the user's point of view, the continuous decline in product prices, especially the "halving" price reduction of COB products since 2023, allows the same budget to buy better products. This is the main logic of applying products below P1.0 in the command and dispatch center or conference room market. For P1.2-p1.8 products, especially the application of COB products in indoor digital signage and other fields, more benefit from the increase in demand for high definition and ultra-high definition content display - indoor advertising is increasingly pursued, and close-up viewing is free of pixel granulation.

From the supplier's perspective, after the technology continues to mature, cost reduction is inevitable. To maintain sales of a single item, higher-end products need to be used. At the same price, promoting products with higher performance indicators is an inevitable choice for brand manufacturers and channel companies.

In addition, in terms of application, industry companies try their best to explore and tap every "space". Such as the floor screen of the basketball court, the transparent screen in the middle of the mall, the active interactive application of "screen robot" combined with AI intelligent content, the combination of XR virtual production and live broadcast industry... The combination of new space and new technology, the combination of new content and new technology, constitutes the main aspect of application innovation.

Among them, the application in the field of education is gradually moving towards a solution-building integrated cooperation model, such as the "Intelligent Video Joint Laboratory" jointly established by the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Alto Electronics, focusing on solving a series of key technical problems restricting the development of the industry, giving birth to a number of technological innovation achievements with significant influence and breakthroughs, and finally achieving mutual benefit and win-win results for both schools and enterprises.

In addition, content innovation drives the potential expansion of indoor LED direct display applications, which has become an industry consensus. How to interact with more content industries, get married, and even establish a cooperative solution company platform is a key issue that many LED direct display companies need to consider in the future. The value of display always depends on the content itself and the digital intelligence society. AI + is promoting the transformation and upgrading of the "content" industry, which must also be an industry opportunity for LED indoor direct display from production to exhibition.

The application is more diverse, the demand is more segmented, and the technology is continuously iterated: this is the main feature of the indoor LED direct display market. Industry enterprises build "accurate and detailed" ecological service capabilities, which has become the key to competition. Continuously iterating on the supply side of the same scene and the same demand, and striving to find updated scene needs, is the most significant market-side expansion feature of the indoor LED direct display business of industry enterprises in 2024.

4. LED direct display price war and value station equal emphasis

2024 is another big year of price war for the LED direct display industry. Why is the price war iterative? Because the cost has actually dropped: on the one hand, the traditional supply product technology and industrial chain are mature and the scale has expanded, which has compressed the cost. On the other hand, the industry's production capacity has increased, and more smaller-sized LED crystals have been used, resulting in cost competition.

More importantly, the application of high-end products has always been "insufficient in volume". For example, the sales of LED all-in-one machines and other products are tepid, and one of the most fundamental reasons is "high price". Therefore, price reduction is also the key to launching and opening up new applications on the demand side. "Old markets and new markets" have endogenous motivation for price wars, so price wars have to be fought.

According to the data, in Quarter 1 of 2024 alone, the price of small-pitch LED direct display products fell by 30% year-on-year. Although the price low effect was obvious in the fourth quarter of 2023, the price of different categories of LED direct display products still fell by 1-20% in 2024. Under the price reduction, more market segment data showed that the increase did not increase revenue, which became the "normal" of the industry.

However, for the inevitability of price decline, industry companies did not sit still, but launched a "value war in the context of lower prices" through both horizontal and vertical directions: the horizontal solution is "overseas market expansion". Cost sensitivity is a common law of the global LED consumer market. Especially in the vast southern markets outside our country and developed countries, the price drop of LED has brought about a significant increase in market accessibility. Through horizontal development of emerging consumer markets such as overseas developing countries, LED manufacturers have effectively compensated for the business pressure caused by price decline.

The vertical solution is to improve the technical level of the supply side, tap the added value of emerging scenarios, and deepen the new digital and intelligent content, as well as the needs of new industries. At the same time, through more customized and segmented supply lines and differentiated products, the accuracy of product segmentation can be improved, and customers can choose higher-end products and services with unchanged budgets in the context of falling prices to achieve sublimation of business value.

Value war and price war are both important, and the LED direct display industry chain is being reshaped. In 2024, through continuous exploration of industrial capabilities, building a dual-advantage pattern of industry competition dominated by total volume and innovation has become the main strategic goal of the development of industry enterprises.

5. Those who win overseas win the world, and LED direct display accelerates going global

A significant change in the LED direct display industry in 2024 is the accelerated rise of the global market depression. In particular, LED indoor display, the application direction of this rise in our country, accelerated landing in Europe and the United States, in the Middle East, South East Asia continue to break through, try to layout in more southern countries, and become the main direction of our country's LED enterprises going out.

From the data, it is a general trend that the overseas market share of the leading LED companies in the market will increase to 6-7% throughout the year. Especially in the context of variables such as the domestic market volume increase in 2024, the price decrease, the second half of the year, Europe and the United States have entered the interest rate reduction cycle, and the price decline on the southern market. The growth of overseas revenue is almost the entire revenue increase of LED leading companies. It has become a consensus to win the world overseas in 2024.

From the perspective of market competition, this round of LED direct overseas expansion has a significant "China solution" advantage. It is a "high-quality going out" supported by innovative products, innovative production capacity, innovative solutions, innovative technologies, and global exclusive or first-launch products. The overseas market obstacles encountered by industry enterprises are mainly reflected in price and market consumption habits, legal rules and regulations, local ecology and channel capabilities. Its main application scenarios are also dominated by "emerging" applications. Through the victory of new applications, the breakthrough of old applications has been driven, and it has become the focus of marketing for industry enterprises.

Especially in high-precision products such as COB, MIP, LED movie screen, naked eye 3D, XR virtual production, our country's enterprises will have more confidence and strength to go out in 2024. Such advanced products have formed a global competitive advantage dominated by our country's enterprises, whether it is market share, production capacity scale or technical level.

The dual advantages of innovation ability and production capacity scale have also promoted the further growth of our country's LED direct display overseas brand foundry business. The technical indicators are better and the cost is lower, which has become the main competitive advantage of the foundry industry. In 2024, our country's LED direct display will go out and present a pattern of "independent brand and foundry".

In 2024, the pattern of "big head out" in our country's LED industry market will be further consolidated. The overseas market share of leading brands continues to increase. Overseas market expansion occupies more resources for leading brands, which has become the norm. LED direct shows that the internationalization level of enterprises has jumped to a new height, showing a good situation of accelerated interaction between Eastern and Western innovation and simultaneous development of northern and southern markets.

6. The strong are always strong, and the threshold for leading enterprises has been significantly improved

The development of our country's LED direct display industry in 2024 reflects the structural changes in the market share of leading enterprises slightly declining and the share of central enterprises rising, but the "entry threshold" of leading enterprises is raised. There are three main reasons for these changes:

The first is the continuation of "technology diffusion". For example, by adopting the MIP solution provided by packaging companies, middle-tier enterprises in the second- and third-tier can also smoothly enter the micro-pitch and Micro LED product markets. Adopting the OEM product solution, more companies have launched high-grade COB products, etc. At the same time, the mass production technology of pitch products above P1.0 is highly mature, and some middle-tier enterprises have established corresponding production capacity and R & D strength. This technology diffusion is the reason why the share of the top brands in the small-pitch LED market has continued to decline slightly since 2022.

The second reason is "overseas market expansion". Especially the overseas market expansion of independent brands requires manpower and material resources to limit the ability of more enterprises to participate in this "core incremental market of the industry". This is an opportunity for leading LED direct display companies to grow themselves and widen the gap with central enterprises. It is also one of the core "incremental markets" to change the brand pattern of the domestic LED industry. Similarly, the integration with AI technology, the integration with the content industry chain, the construction of product-as-a-service, and the new ecological capabilities of the digital era of display-as-a-service also require the scale advantage and forward-looking innovation ability of industry enterprises, which is conducive to the share focus of leading enterprises.

The third reason is the enhancement of "core technical capabilities". Mainly refers to breakthroughs in MIP, COB technology, and massive transfer technology.

Overseas stronger, stronger ecology, and breakthroughs in core packaging technology are the basis for leading LED direct display companies to establish advantage barriers; while technology diffusion, accelerated promotion of mature technology products, and OEM manufacturing are the advantages of second- and third-tier companies and central brands to expand market presence and share. The interaction of the two aspects leads to the LED direct display companies in 2024. With the amplification of the head advantage and the constant strength of the strong, the actual market share will not increase but decrease. In 2024, the LED direct display industry will continue to operate under the fundamentals of "highly fragmented industrial chain". This determines that the "melee" pattern of LED direct display supply-side competition cannot be changed in the short term.

In summary, the LED direct display industry in 2024, driven by emerging markets and emerging scenarios, will present a pattern of "abundant production" in both quantity and quality of global market sales; however, the intensification of competition and the decline in average prices have also brought about "less than expected growth" in global market sales.

This is a highly structured, decentralized and diversified industry landscape. Industry experts' evaluation of 2024 is that opportunities and challenges coexist, the accumulation of internal growth momentum in the industry coexists with external cyclical troughs, and the outstanding achievements of enterprises' upward breakthroughs coexist with layers of resistance from the sinking of the application side. This determines that the industry needs to actively reshape the competitive logic and application value chain through multiple innovations in technology, ecology, channels and application side, and to achieve sustainable high-quality growth.