Mini/Micro LED Industry in 2024: A Tale of Contrasting Fortunes Amidst Massive Investment(2)

In 2024, the LED direct display industry has witnessed a remarkable "capacity harvest year." Despite the fluctuations in the macro economy, the domestic market has maintained continuous growth, while the overseas market has accelerated its expansion with declining prices and upgraded quality. Significantly, a new "technical opportunity" has emerged, with the mass production of MIP becoming an industry consensus.

In terms of specifications, breaking through 0606, 0404, and 0202 device specifications has been the primary path for supply upgrades. The breakthrough of 0202 products, especially the application of 30*50mil substrate-less technology, will accelerate the landing of P0.3 to P0.5 ultra-micro display products, potentially creating new opportunities in the TV-like market.

Regarding production capacity, industry leader Unilumin Group, relying on advanced manufacturing bases such as Daya Bay and Zhongshan, plans to expand its MIP production capacity to 6000KK per month by the end of 2024 to meet the global market's demand for ultra-micro pitch products. Similar to Unilumin's move, many industry-leading midstream packaging and downstream terminal brands, including Alto Electronics, Absen, BOE, LianTronics, Hisense, Kinglight, Nationstar, and Core Projection, have also focused on expanding MIP production, especially the mature 0404 products, which are widely adaptable to the micro pitch market, significantly increasing production capacity.

Moreover, MIP is also achieving better "compatibility." For example, from the perspective of terminal pitch, Alto Electronics has continuously launched products ranging from P0.3mm, P0.4mm, P0.7mm, P0.9mm, P1.2mm to P1.5mm, realizing the full coverage and mass production of LED direct display products. Unilumin Group has launched products covering the P0.7 to P3.9 specifications, verifying MIP's ability to introduce Micro LED into more than 70% of the current mature application scenarios of LED direct display. Midstream packaging enterprises have proposed the concept of MIP+COB, suggesting that MIP can be used for surface coating after surface mounting or directly as COB packaging components, expanding its application range to cover all of terminal packaging.

In conclusion, 2024 has seen MIP overcome the initial capacity bottleneck and is now on the verge of a new market explosion cycle, making it a significant year for the development of the LED display industry.