Samsung display unit sees robust smartphone growth
SEOUL, April 19 (Reuters) - Samsung Mobile Display, a mobile display venture of Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), said on Sunday the global smartphone market was expected to grow to 500 million units in 2012 from 170 million in 2009.
Despite slowing economies worldwide and falling sales in the overall mobile phone market, sales of feature-jammed smartphones, such as Apple's (AAPL.O) iPhone and Research In Motion's (RIM.TO) BlackBerry, continue growing.
Smartphones would account for 29 percent of the entire mobile phone market in 2012, compared with 14 percent in 2009, Samsung Mobile Display predicted.
The display maker, a 50-50 joint venture between Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI (006400.KS), also expected touchscreens would be adopted by about 50 percent of major portable devices -- mobile phones, digital cameras, navigations and digital media players -- to be sold in 2013.
It said growing smartphone sales and touchscreen adoptions would boost sales of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, a small but fast-growing display segment.
OLED panels are seen as a promising next-generation display as they are thinner and offer higher quality pictures than liquid crystal and plasma panels, but a shorter life span is a drawback.
OLED screens could appear on 50 percent of all mobile phones within next five years, said Samsung Mobile Display, the world's No. 1 maker of active-matrix OLED. (Reporting by Rhee So-eui; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
