2023 has already passed, and this year is also an extremely extraordinary one. It has been a year of full struggle, even in the face of increasingly complex and uncertain international environments, many local economies are recovering moderately. From the perspective of the LED display screen industry, in response to the complex and ever-changing external environment and risk challenges, the overall trend of steady recovery continues. The resilience and potential demonstrated by LED display screen enterprises provide strong support for the industry's path forward. New technologies, new applications, new opportunities, and new challenges coexist, and LED displays continue to move forward, which fills people with expectations for the development direction of the industry in 2024 and beyond.

01. The cold winter has dissipated, and the dawn is gradually approaching

Since May 2023, the overall trend of LED display screen exports has been relatively stable. According to customs data, the export volume of LED display screens in the first three quarters of 2023 reached about 7.547 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 3.62%. Meanwhile, in the third quarter of 2023, the sales revenue of small pitch LED displays approached 4.37 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.4% and a month on month decrease of 1.7%; The shipment area reached 307000 square meters, an increase of 27% year-on-year and 3.8% month on month. From the cumulative perspective of the previous three quarters, the sales volume of small pitch LED displays in Chinese Mainland was 11.7 billion, up 1.0% year on year; The shipment area is 808000 square meters, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year. The recovery of LED business may be approaching dawn.

It is worth noting that industry insiders have analyzed that from the current large screen splicing market, LED small pitch has surpassed LCD splicing in both sales and sales. After years of development, LCD splicing has shown weak product growth, mainly in the monitoring and small area messaging markets, and will generally show a negative growth trend in the next three years. On the other hand, LED small pitch is entering a second growth period under many driving factors such as Micro LED technology, brand, and scene applications. In the future, Mini LED micro pitch products will not be a transitional technology in the TO G TO B market, but will gradually become the main application force in the engineering market, especially products with P0.9.

In addition, with the popularity of devices such as smartphones and tablets, the market demand in the display field is also constantly increasing. The development of technologies such as AR and VR has further driven the growth of demand in the display field, and will achieve moderate growth in 2024. From the perspective of inventory, on the one hand, major global chip manufacturers Q3 have shown a turning point in inventory; On the other hand, benefiting from the recovery of consumer electronics, passive components, PCBs, optical components and other links have improved, and inventory reduction is nearing completion. In summary, after experiencing a downward cycle of one to two years, the fundamentals of the LED display industry have basically been "bottomed out", and several companies have shown signs of recovery in their quarterly reports. Therefore, we should not be overly pessimistic at the current time, as the cold winter is gradually fading away and we are waiting for the spring to return.

02 Frequent technological innovations bloom in multiple fields

Since the beginning of 2023, there has been an endless stream of technological innovations in the LED display screen industry's product terminals, presenting a state of flourishing and competition among a hundred schools of thought. Firstly, in the field of packaging, COB has already established a significant first mover advantage. As a high-end direction of packaging technology, enterprises and brands have fully entered the market, gradually becoming an important product technology trend under the development of LED screen micro spacing. The camp and scale of related manufacturers are rapidly expanding. In addition, COB has the natural characteristics of shorter and simpler process steps. When a breakthrough is made in the transfer of large amounts of processes and costs, there is a possibility of conquering cities and territories. Secondly, Mini/Micro LED display technology and LED virtual shooting have gradually become new additions to the development of the LED market. The Mini LED backlight market has experienced a compound annual growth rate of 50% since entering its first year of growth in 2021; After the maturity of key technologies such as massive transfer, Micro LED is expected to achieve large-scale use in the future; In terms of LED virtual shooting, with the decrease in cost and improvement in efficiency of this technology, it is increasingly being applied not only in the film and television field, but also in variety shows, live streaming, advertising and other scenes.

In addition, according to the statistics of the LED Display Application Branch of the China Optics and Optoelectronics Industry Association, the market share of indoor and outdoor display products has undergone significant changes in recent years. The proportion of indoor display products has been increasing year by year, accounting for more than 70% of the total product volume for the year. Since 2016, small pitch LED displays have experienced explosive growth and quickly become the mainstream product in the display screen market. At present, the overall market share of small to medium pitch products for indoor and outdoor LED displays is over 40%. From the perspective of practical application scenarios, the current LED small pitch market sales pattern shows that the channel market has already split into five parts of the industry engineering market. Currently, the channel market continues to cover a deeper market, while the industry engineering market is gradually moving towards more segmented market coverage. The main body of procurement or application is evolving from centralization to subdivision, and more new scenarios will be derived, such as XR virtual shooting and LED cinema applications. In the next five years, the market will continue to show growth of over 15%, showing a diversified direction for advancement.

03 Seven ministries and commissions issue assembly orders, indicating great potential for the audiovisual industry

In mid December, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and seven other departments jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the High Quality Development of the Audiovisual and Electronic Industry", providing guidance on improving the supply capacity of high-level audiovisual systems, building a modern audiovisual and electronic industry system, carrying out smooth audiovisual circulation actions, and enhancing the level of international development. The Guiding Opinions propose that by 2030, the overall strength of China's audiovisual and electronic industry will enter the forefront of the world. By 2027, the global competitiveness of China's audiovisual electronics industry will significantly enhance, key technological innovation will continue to break through, the industrial foundation will continue to be strengthened, the industrial ecology will continue to improve, and a development pattern with excellent innovation capabilities, strong industrial resilience, high openness, and significant brand influence will be basically formed. Cultivate several segmented new markets worth billions of yuan, form a group of typical cases of audio-visual systems, cultivate a group of specialized and innovative "little giant" enterprises and manufacturing industry champions, create a group of internationally renowned brands, and build a group of public service platforms and industrial clusters with regional influence and leading ecological development.

The issuance of the Guiding Opinions is of great significance in the expansion of emerging display applications and industrial technological innovation and invention. The eight types of new audio-visual systems deployed are highly related to the development path of LED technology, undoubtedly bringing strong reassurance to the development of the LED display screen industry. For LED screen companies, facing the current opportunities, they should accelerate innovation, create differentiated products, and create new consumer demands. Through technological innovation and talent introduction, we continuously launch high-value LED products and solutions, raise the industry ceiling, create a healthy competitive order, form a good ecological pattern of co construction, sharing, and development, and promote the industry to work together to make the cake bigger and stronger.

Rolling stones climb mountains, climbing hills and overcoming obstacles. In this year, LED professionals have accumulated the resilience of "enduring countless hardships and setbacks", constantly consolidating positive energy for the development of the LED display screen industry. Shitong Bell also firmly believes that the rise of LED displays in 2024 is imperative and ushers in a new blueprint.