Author | Huang Yu Editor | Liu Baodan Last year, thanks to the success of the "Speeding" on iQiyi, the company has had a difficult time recently. On the one hand, the explosively popular TV series is on hiatus, and on the other hand, the derivative concert of the variety show "Plant Some Goodness" has been criticized for "free offline but paid online." According to Wall Street News, the second Wheat Field Music Festival, produced by iQiyi's reality show "Plant Some Goodness," was held on June 6th. Some viewers had previously received free offline tickets through official activities, while online viewers, even iQiyi members, had to pay RMB 12 for viewing, and the viewing period was valid until June 14th. This differentiated pricing model has caused dissatisfaction among many viewers, who question that iQiyi's move is "cutting corners." In response, iQiyi's customer service said, "You can buy tickets to watch the concert live according to your own needs, and the edited content of the concert will be launched on the main platform in the future." In fact, this is not the first time that long video platforms represented by iQiyi have been accused of "cutting corners." In recent years, membership grading systems, early access, and inventory restrictions have often caused user backlash, in addition to paying extra for derivative programs. The differential pricing model reflects the growth anxiety faced by long-form video platforms such as "i优腾."

Editor: Liu Baodan

As one of the global panel leaders, TCL China Star is once again set to unleash a major bombshell on the market.

Recently, at the TCL China Star Printing OLED Technology Theme Exchange Conference, Cao Weiran, the head of the TCL China Star Printing OLED Center, revealed that TCL China Star is actively preparing for mass production of printing OLED, with equipment and production lines already installed. The first product, a display screen for medical devices, has entered the trial production stage and is expected to achieve formal mass production by the end of this year.

This means that after 11 years of laying out the new printing OLED display technology, TCL China Star will finally enter the payback period.

Nowadays, oled has become the mainstream choice in the smart phone industry, with more and more market voices pointing out that oled will lead the future development trend in medium-sized devices such as tablets, laptops, and monitors. However, the popularization of oled in the IT product field still faces the high cost challenge brought by high investment.

Printing oled technology refers to using inkjet printing processes to produce oled display panels. Compared to traditional vacuum deposition processes, this technology can significantly reduce costs, achieve high PPI, and longer lifespan. Therefore, printing oled technology is considered an important development direction for the next generation of display technology.

In order to promote the industrialized mass production of printed oled, in 2020, tcl huaxing strategically invested 30 billion yen in JOLED; last year, tcl huaxing completed the installation of the country's first printed oled production line equipment in wuhan, and as of now this year, it has preliminarily completed the construction and equipment debugging of the G5.5 production line.

Explaining why it took so long to achieve mass production of printed oled, Cao Weiran pointed out that this is related to the entire development process. Initially, TCL Huaxing spent a lot of effort on changing the product direction. At the beginning, the resolution of the printed oled was not so high, so the initial target was in the television field. However, it now appears that in the television field, MiniLED is a good direction, so TCL decided to focus the application direction of printed oled towards monitors and laptops.

It is reported that there are many technical issues to be resolved in this process, and currently TCL Huaxing is mainly focused on solving these technical problems.

Furthermore, Cao Weiran pointed out that the future of printed oled lies in large-scale mass production, and the overall operation is closely related to capacity and yield. However, there has been very little data accumulation in this area before, so TCL Huaxing hopes to accumulate more yield improvement experience through this production line.

As for choosing a medical device display screen as the first mass-produced printed oled product, Cao Weiran explained that this type of application field has high specifications but not a high demand volume. Printed oled is still in the trial production stage and cannot handle high volumes yet, so they will choose a product category with lower quantity requirements.

In addition, regarding the future application trends of oled, Cao Weiran believes that following smartphones, pads, laptops, and monitors will increasingly adopt oled technology.

Currently, the biggest challenge facing the printing oled is the market's doubts about its performance. Cao Weiran stated that TCL CSOT has invested heavily and found solutions, but the production process for the entire panel is very complex and requires good coordination between the front and back ends. The yield rate is also continuously increasing.

The semiconductor display panel is a well-recognized cyclical industry. After experiencing the most severe semiconductor display industry winter in 2022, the industry has begun to warm up since the second half of last year. TCL Corporation's semiconductor display business has also entered a phase of profit improvement, and recently acquired LG's Guangzhou LCD panel factory for 10.8 billion yuan.

Regarding the industry trends in the future, Cao Weiran believes that it will enter a stage of gradual stabilization. There will also be three major trends: the growth of panels driven by large-size televisions; the increase in mobile devices such as laptops brought by AIPC; and the transition to oled technology, with products possibly actively shifting towards oled.

Clearly, in order to maintain its leading position in the panel industry and achieve further breakthroughs, TCL CSOT has chosen to persist in investing in cutting-edge technologies, which is a difficult yet correct path.