Research firm optimistic about OLED and e-paper displays

[Alexander Turcic]

NanoMarkets analysts have published a report stating that the combined sales of OLED displays and paper-like displays will reach $10.2 billion by 2011 and then go on to reach $14.7 billion by 2013. The three key factors to help them grow into a multibillion dollar business over the next decade are:

• low-cost: the cost to manufacture these displays will continue to decrease
• low power consumption: bistable e-paper displays don't require power to retain an image)
• flexibility: see our earlier post today on Plastic Logic

You can find an excerpt of the report here which also includes the following positive statement in particular on paper-like displays:

Paper-like displays may have a revolutionary impact. It is easy to speculate about their replacing books or leading to much more efficient retailing. However, as with anything almost totally new, paper-like displays are as likely to have a marginal as a world-changing effect on our lives. The personal computing revolution was supposed to bring the paperless office, but cheaper printing actually increased our use of paper. Paper-like displays have the potential to change the face of book, magazine and newspaper publishing, and even to reduce the number of paper drafts that are printed in the publishing process, but to predict any of these things as a certainty would be beyond foolish. Having said that, paper-like displays do offer an attractive, portable, re-usable and low-power alternative to both paper and any kind of screen.