With increasing road accidents in the world, the demand for embedded Head-up display (HUD) is rising. HUD ensures easy and safe reading of critical information like car speed, warning signals, indicator arrows for navigation, and fuel level. We estimate that the total global embedded HUD shipment will reach 15.6 million by 2025, with a CAGR of 17% during the 2019-2025 period. The following is our analysis and our forecast of how the global HUD market will behave till 2025.

EVs to Account for 16% of HUD Sales by 2025, Regulations Key to Adoption

Electric vehicles (EVs) are more tech-savvy than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, and EV car-buyers are more willing to pay extra for advanced features like HUD. Therefore, we expect EVs to drive the HUD market because the adoption rate of other smart features like Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), connected car technology, and more, being higher than conventional cars. EVs including battery electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) will cover 30% of total vehicle sales by 2025. We expect EVs to account for 16% of total HUD sales by 2025. SUVs and autonomous vehicles are other potential segments for HUDs. In fact, once more L4 autonomous vehicles are introduced in 2023, we expect a rise in the market penetration of HUDs.

China to continue to dominate global HUD market till 2025

China is expected to dominate the global HUD market during the forecast period, owing to rising sales of premium and mid-segment cars, which are more likely to have embedded HUDs. Moreover, China will account for a significant share of EV shipments in the world, benefiting HUD sales in the country. The US and Europe are also expected to see good growth during 2019-2025. Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and UAE will contribute more to the rest of the world section (RoW). The geography-wise global HUD market share by 2018 is shown below:

Integrated and AR-based HUDs to become popular

In the future, HUDs will get integrated with the vehicle’s systems and display additional information, including outside weather, On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) information, location search, and smartphone-based app services. The augmented reality (AR) based HUDs will identify blind spots and show timely warnings to prevent accidents. Moreover, holographic pictures will ensure better visibility, sharpness, picture quality.

Combiner HUD to Continue Dominate

Cheaper combiner HUDs will continue to dominate the global market. However, windshield HUDs will see a much faster growth during the 2019-2025 period.

Windshield HUD – projecting images on the vehicle’s windshield – will increase its penetration in the global HUD market because it will be able to display more information with greater visual comfort. The higher cost of windshield HUD is hindering its growth for now, and it will have more penetration on premium segment cars.

The combiner HUD – with information displayed on a separate combiner display – will have significant market share in medium and lower segment cars. The robustness design with an affordable price of these HUDs will help to get more sales in medium and lower segment cars.

OLED Restricted to Luxury, TFT-LCD to Dominate Mass Market

The automotive industry is going through digitalization, driven by connected technology. The rising demand to display more data to the driver will help grow the demand. While demand for expensive OLED displays is increasing among luxury automakers, LCDs will continue to account for a vast majority of sales by 2025.

BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz are considering for OLED display in premium segment cars. The shortage of OLED supply has also restricted the penetration of OLED screen in the global HUD market. It will create a huge opportunity for OLED suppliers like Samsung Display, LG Display, BOE, and JDI. Still, LCDs will dominate the HUD market during the forecast period due to lower pricing and easy availability in the market.

Continental Expected to Dominate the Market, With Focus on R&D and Product Innovation

The major players in the global embedded HUD market are Continental, Denso, Nippon Seiki, Bosch, and Panasonic. Harman, Garmin, and Hudway are the major aftermarket suppliers in the HUD market. Continental is investing more in product development and creating several product lines. Panasonic has recently entered the market and got a contract for supplying HUDs to Jaguar Land Rover.

Focus on AR & Driver Safety to Push HUD Adoption Among all Vehicle Categories

The HUD makers are trying to produce compact size HUD to target medium and lower segment cars. However, the display size of HUDs installed in premium vehicles continues to increase. In the future, a considerable portion of the windscreen will be used for displaying all the critical information in L4 and L5 level autonomous vehicles. This presents a great opportunity for Gentex, Magna, Samvardhana, and other players for supplying HUDs.