With ISM 2.0 expected to be announced in early 2026, it is increasingly likely that:

• The incentives for FPD fabs will be enhanced
• One or more global panel makers, initially LCD-focused with OLED migration over time, will evaluate India as a China+1/Korea+1 production base

We predict this announcement will come in the first half of 2026.

#4: LTPO Backplanes Will Increasingly Dominate High-End Smartphones and Grow to More Than 40% of OLED Smartphone Panels

LTPO backplanes and 144/165Hz refresh rates have become the standard in premium OLED smartphones, as OEMs prioritize power efficiency, smoother UX, and premium differentiation.

• As smartphone OEMs increasingly prioritize power efficiency, adaptive refresh rates and premium user experience, LTPO’s ability to dynamically scale refresh rates, while reducing power consumption, makes it the preferred solution, particularly for mid-to-high-end devices. With LTPO costs continuing to decline and panel makers expanding LTPO capacity, adoption is now moving rapidly beyond flagship models.
• In parallel, 144Hz and 165Hz OLED displays will emerge as the new mainstream performance standard. What began as a gaming-centric feature is now becoming a broader differentiation lever across smartphones, driven by smoother UI experiences, AI-enhanced content and increasingly powerful application processors capable of sustaining higher frame rates. As panel yields improve, higher refresh rates are quickly transitioning from niche to necessity.

% LTPO Backplanes for Selected Smartphone Brands

#5: Ultra-Slim Smartphone Designs Will Wither Based on Weak Demand

2025 saw the introduction of a new category in smartphones as Samsung introduced its Galaxy S25 Edge and Apple launched the iPhone Air. Billed as the thinnest iPhone ever, Apple calls the Air “impossibly thin and light” at 5.6 mm and 165 gm. The Air beats the Edge for thinness by a margin of 0.2 mm, but the Edge is 2 gm lighter.

In both cases, the new thin products have some trade-offs that appear to diminish their appeal to consumers. Comparing the S25 Edge to the S25+, both phones have the same display and the Edge is 1.5 mm thinner and 27 gm lighter. For that extra thickness and weight, though, consumers get an additional rear camera (three instead of two) and a 25% larger battery. Furthermore, the Plus buyers get to keep $100 since the Edge is more expensive.

Similarly, when comparing the iPhone Air with the iPhone 17, the 17 can’t compete on thinness since it is 2.3 mm thicker, but the difference in weight is only 12 gm. The screen on the Air is 3% larger but otherwise the displays are comparable. Like the comparable Samsung models, the Air has one fewer camera option but has a shorter battery life and is more expensive (by $200 in Apple’s case).

Most consumers have concluded that slim and light is not worth the extra cost and diminished features. Counterpoint estimates that the Air represented less than 10% of iPhone 17 series panel shipments in 2025, while the Edge represented only about 8% of Galaxy S25 series panel shipments.

As a result, although we believe that both Apple and Samsung have prepared successors to their thin and light models, we predict that neither the Galaxy S26 Edge nor the iPhone 18 Air will be introduced in 2026.

#6: Foldable Smartphone Panel Shipments Will Increase by 50%

We correctly predicted that foldable smartphone panel shipments would decrease in 2025, the first year that the segment did not grow since Samsung introduced the category in 2019. A part of the downturn was related to a dearth of new models, but another factor may have been an expectation of Apple’s entry into the category.

OLED Panel Shipments for Foldable Smartphones

We expect Apple to introduce a foldable phone as part of its fall product launch. Our sources expect an in-fold type with a 7.6” OLED screen with a resolution of 2160 x 1916 for an aspect ratio of 8:9. We don’t know what Apple will call its foldable phone, but we expect it to quickly rise to the top of the charts, becoming the highest-volume foldable phone for the full year 2026 in only four months of sales, assuming its introduction in September.

Apple’s launch of a foldable will boost the whole category, and as a result, we predict that foldable panel shipments will increase by more than 50% in 2026.

#7 – New LCD Capacity Will Be Planned

We had this prediction in 2025 and we were right, but the underlying dynamic has not changed, so we are predicting another round in 2026.

Although OLED investments get the most attention and the most substantial technology programs are in that technology, LCD continues to serve as the overwhelming majority of FPDs. This is especially true in TVs; although OLEDs serve the market’s top end, they account for less than 3% of TV units, and, with the current capacity in place, they cannot compete with LCDs in sizes bigger than 83”.

LCD Demand by Application Group, 2020-2029

That is exactly the segment that is growing the fastest in the TV market. Shipments of TVs with screen sizes 90” and larger more than doubled in 2024 and appear to have doubled again in 2025. The two largest TV brands in China – TCL and Hisense – have aggressively promoted these very large screens and have succeeded in capturing a foothold in the premium TV space. During Black Friday in November 2025, both companies offered 98” TVs for only $999.

The growth in the ultra-large TV market supports our forecast that TV area will continue to increase at a low-to-mid single digit % without significant growth in unit volumes. The average TV screen size will continue to increase, and therefore LCD demand area will continue to increase.

We do not expect any big new LCD fabs. There are four Gen 10.5 fabs operating now, and we don’t expect a fifth one. We do expect that Chinese panel makers will plan incremental expansions of existing lines, which will boost capacity in Gen 8.5 and larger fabs. This was the pattern in 2025, and we expect it again in 2026.

#8 RGB MiniLED Volumes Will be Minimal

RGB MiniLED is expected to be the flagship TV technology at CES this week. Each brand has a different name for the technology – Samsung calls it MicroRGB, LG calls it Micro RGB evo and Hisense calls it RGB-MiniLED, but these are all the same basic technology. Displays with this technology employ red, green and blue LEDs in a backlight matrix, so that individual colors are modulated by both the backlight and the LCD cell.

LG Micro RGB evo TV

Both Hisense and Samsung introduced this technology at CES 2025, but each company offered only flagship models that were prohibitively priced. Hisense’s 116UX lists for $24,999 and its smaller sibling, the 100UX, is $9,999. Samsung’s 115” Micro RGB TV lists for $29,999.

Samsung has announced that it will broaden its product line to include six sizes, down to as small as 55”. While LG and Hisense have not revealed their product lines, we expect them to include multiple models as well. Similarly, we expect that TCL will introduce the technology in 2026, so the competition for the top four brands will be intense.

Although we project that the 2026 prices will be substantially lower than the 2025 flagships, we expect that RGB MiniLED TVs by all brands will continue to be offered only at premium prices. We think that Samsung will set RGB MiniLED as its top tier in each screen size. In 2025, Samsung’s top 55” TV (excluding its Lifestyle series) was a QD-OLED TV with a recommended price of $2,399, and its top 65” TV was the Neo QLED (i.e. MiniLED) 8K TV at $5,499.

The problem these products face is that the market for TVs at prices higher than $3,000 is tiny. According to Counterpoint’s Advanced TV Shipment and Forecast Report, in 2024, only 557,000 TVs across all screen sizes and all technologies sold for more than $3,000, and this figure is not expected to increase in the coming years. For these high-end consumers, RGB MiniLED will need to compete with OLED TVs as well as conventional MiniLED TVs. For that reason, we predict that the volumes for RGB MiniLED TVs will be less than one million in 2026. In order to judge whether we are right at the end of the year, we will consider only the actual shipments for Q1-Q3; we expect these will be less than 500,000.

#9 MiniLED TV Growth Will Continue to Outpace OLED TV

OLED TVs captured the top spot in the premium TV market when they were introduced more than 10 years ago, and for a long time dominated the high-end TV space. MiniLED TVs were first introduced by TCL in 2019, but their shipments remained minimal until Samsung launched its Neo QLED series in 2021. Samsung dominated the MiniLED category through 2023 but kept prices relatively high to sustain its profitability while also offering TVs with QD-OLED panels.

This changed in 2024 when TCL and Hisense started to aggressively promote MiniLED TVs at ultra-large screen sizes (85” and larger) and at low price points. The two Chinese brands had been disadvantaged in OLED TVs since the only suppliers of OLED TV panels were (and still are) the South Korean duo of LG Display and Samsung Display. So TCL and Hisense pivoted to their strength – close connections with LCD makers in mainland China, China Star and BOE, respectively.

Ultra-Premium TV Shipments, MiniLED vs OLED

Both of the Chinese brands surpassed Samsung in MiniLED TV sales in 2024 and extended their lead in 2025 by offering more models in a wider range of screen sizes, especially taking advantage of Gen 10.5 fabs to make ultra-large TV panels economically. Meanwhile, OLED TVs saw limited screen size growth since the fabs for both LG and Samsung are Gen 8.5.

We believe the trend of MiniLED TV growth outpacing OLED TV growth will continue in 2026. MiniLED will continue to gain share in the ultra-premium TV space.

#10 AR Glasses with a Single-Panel Full-Color MicroLED Light Engine Will Start Shipping

Chinese OEMs such as Even Realities, Rokid and Meizu are increasingly adopting MicroLED light engines for AR glasses. In 2025, we also saw Alibaba launch its first smart glasses featuring two MicroLED displays. However, most of these devices are still based on monochrome green panels because full-color MicroLED is not available yet. It is possible to produce a full-color light engine by combining three monochrome panels (red, blue and green) into an X-prism. The RayNeo X3 Pro is currently the only device on the market with this solution.

In 2024, Meta demonstrated its Orion glasses product concept, which also used a trio of monochrome MicroLED panels coupled directly into a waveguide. For the Meta Ray-Ban Display, the company used a custom LCoS light engine instead. Chinese OEMs will likely continue to use MicroLED technology, but there will be more pressure to upgrade to a full-color light engine.

Producing a full-color MicroLED panel is not straightforward. One approach is based on stacking multiple emitters, while another is based on blue LEDs and quantum dot color conversion. A hybrid structure combining both approaches has also been demonstrated by Hongshi Intelligent Technology. While we do not expect any of these approaches to enter large-scale production this year, we can predict that at least one pair of glasses from a Chinese OEM will start shipping.