On December 17, 2013, China-based touch panel maker Truly Optoelectronics announced that it had entered a joint venture with the Huizhou City Government to invest in a 4.5G AMOLED line that will go into production in the second half of 2015 and have a production capacity of about 15,000 substrates a month. This follows similar agreements made between China-based Tianma and BOE with Visionox and EDO to establish a 4.5G AMOLED line, as well as developments by Century and China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) to further invest in AMOLED production. This means that from 2016 onwards, China's handset vendors are likely to mostly rely on AMOLED panels from local makers, according to Digitimes Research.
With investments from the China government to increase local panel makers' production capacity and technological capabilities, coupled with efforts from local panel makers to attract engineering talent from abroad, the AMOLED panel industry is expected to see major breakthroughs starting 2016, and local handset vendors such as Huawei Device and Lenovo are likely to receive most of their panel supplies from makers such as BOE.
On the other hand, Taiwan-based panel makers such as AU Optronics (AUO) are struggling to increase yields for AMOLED panels, with limited supplies going to HTC. Digitimes Research added that as this trend continues, more China-based handset vendors are likely to resort to local panel makers in the future for handset panels, leaving Taiwan makers' future in the market uncertain.
