Although demand for consumer and IT products has dropped in the economic downturn, industrial and public displays with operating systems—also known as industrial PCs (IPCs), a niche application market has seen an increase in interest. IPCs can be divided into industrial and public displays based on applications and sizes. Based on Omdia’s Industrial and Public Display & OEM Intelligence Service, the industrial and public displays market has been growing from 7.6% of total market share in 2020 and 8.5% in 2021 and is expected to grow to 8.7% in 2022. Chinese panel makers have taken the lead for industrial display, in which Tianma tops the first place with 37% share in 2022, followed by BOE, AUO, Innolux and Truly.
Industrial displays are used in in a specific vertical market with a large variety with over 30 applications. Omdia defines and focuses on key industrial display applications, such as gaming, human machine interface, medical, smart retail, smart home and office, transportation, fitness, and others. In public displays, the applications are digital signage, kiosk, video wall, IWB (interactive white board), bar type of retail, and transportation, which are adopted in Out of Home (OOH) and public environments to deliver information, advertisements, or other forms of messaging, with panels larger than 27 inches.
The industrial and public display demands have fluctuated with the economic situation from 2021 to 2022. However, in 2022, the sector has been performing well compared to other main display applications such as consumer electronics and PC, especially in products like slot machines, Human Machine Interface, barcode scanners, and fish finder machine displays where the forecasts are stable and expected to growth.
“Over 20 panel makers have been targeting the industrial and public display arena, working together with the system integrators, module maker, distributors and agencies using a complicated business model. The model is totally different and more challenging compared to consumer electronics and PC. Industrial panels are highly customized products with a large variety of panel specifications available for different environment needs,”, according to Tzu-Yu, Huang, Principal Analyst in Omdia’s Display research practice, “panel makers will need to optimize their supply chain resources and explore industry connections to fulfill the industrial and public display’s system integrators and brands’ needs.”
There are more than hundreds of system integrators worldwide. Panel makers have to deal with not only system integrators such as Advantech, Atemitech, Beacon, BARCO, ChampVision, Compal, Calcomp, Ennoconn, Elo, EIZO, Flytech, Foxconn, FIH, Jabil, Innocomm, Inventec, Kortek, Litemax, Mitac, Pegatron, Quanta, Qisda, Sampo, Stanley, Tovis, TES, TPV, USI, UMEC, Ubiqconn, Wistron, but also industrial system branding companies such as Cisco, Dell, Diebold Nixdorf, Garmin, GE, Getac, Honeywell, HP, IGT, Ingenico, Navoco, NCR, NEC, Philips, Pax, Posiflex, Panasonic, Panasonic Avionics, Schneider, Siemens, Toshiba (TGCS), Thales, Verifone, Zebra. All these companies have a different focus regarding industrial applications.
“To enjoy organic growth, the market product sizes for industrial and public displays must be abundant, product specifications must be diversified, with products meeting long-term supply and high-quality requirements. We are seeing Chinese and Taiwanese panel makers are dominant in these practices, especially Tianma, BOE, AUO, Innolux and Truly while others like HannStar, ChinaStar, Sharp and JDI are aggressively moving in” Huang concluded.
