Sigmaintell projects that global tablet panel shipments will approach 300 million units in 2025, marking a 13.9% year-on-year increase, driven by dual scenarios of traditional tablets and tablet-like devices. Heading into 2026, rising memory costs are accelerating the structural adjustment process within the tablet market. The increase in memory prices has evolved from a temporary cost disturbance into a significant structural variable influencing industry dynamics and competitive landscapes. According to Sigmaintell data, global tablet panel shipments reached approximately 75.3 million units in the fourth quarter of 2025, representing a year-on-year growth of about 20.9% but a slight sequential decline of around 0.9%. For the full year, total global tablet panel shipments neared 300 million units, growing by about 13.9%, which surpasses the 8.4% growth rate seen in 2024. This growth was shaped by a trio of forces: technological upgrades, application scenario expansion, and policy incentives.
In the first half of 2025, demand for branded tablets was concentrated and released, stimulated by domestic subsidy policies and tariff expectations. In the latter half of the year, the growth momentum of the tablet panel market underwent a structural shift: as policies phased out and inventory adjustments occurred, demand from brands stabilized, while tablet-like devices and high-end OLED models emerged as new growth highlights. From the demand perspective, shipments of tablet-like devices surged to approximately 140 million units for the full year, a 20.8% year-on-year increase, accounting for about 46.1% of the total market and demonstrating strong resilience and expansion potential. Their application scenarios continue to extend into commercial, educational, medical, public display, and industrial control fields, prompting panel manufacturers to increase their capacity layout for tablet panels. Oxide technology is accelerating its replacement of LTPS in the mid-range mainstream segment, while OLED focuses on high-end and small-screen flagship strategies for leading brands; a-Si LCD continues to firmly dominate the low-end tablet, white-label product, and tablet-like device markets.
LTPS LCD: Sigmaintell data indicates that global LTPS LCD tablet panel shipments reached about 24.1 million units in 2025, an increase of approximately 31.6% year-on-year. This rapid growth primarily stemmed from the direct incentives provided by national subsidy policies to end consumers—after receiving purchase subsidies, users showed a greater tendency to choose slightly more expensive mid-to-high-end models with superior experiences, thereby significantly expanding the application space for LTPS technology. The core battleground for LTPS panels lies in the price range of 2000 to 3500 yuan, which is also the primary beneficiary range of the national subsidy policies. Oxide LCD (excluding Apple) is mainly used in models within the 1500 to 2500 yuan price segment, with key specifications concentrated in the 2.5K to 3K resolution range, overlapping with LTPS in terms of resolution. In 2025, global Oxide LCD tablet panel shipments reached approximately 19.7 million units, a year-on-year increase of about 30.6%; thanks to its good balance between performance and cost, Oxide is gradually replacing LTPS in domestic mid-range tablet product lines, becoming a more sustainable technological choice.
The OLED tablet market is transitioning from "single-point breakthroughs led by Apple" towards "structural expansion driven by multiple brands." Although shipment growth slowed somewhat in 2025, a critical inflection point is expected from 2026 onwards: Apple plans to extend OLED technology to the iPad Mini and iPad Air, and Huawei will continue to expand the application of OLED in its MatePad series; furthermore, numerous brands are planning small-sized, high-performance OLED flagship tablets, which will drive demand evolution from "exclusive to flagships" towards the "mid-to-high-end" segment. The competitive landscape is evolving along dual tracks of "platformization vs. specialization," with full-stack technological capabilities becoming a moat for leading manufacturers. As panel technology routes diversify, the tablet panel camp is rapidly expanding, with an increasing number of panel manufacturers joining the medium-sized display supply ranks. As a segment market offering both economies of scale and reasonable profits, tablet panels remain highly attractive to manufacturers. Examining the 2025 competitive landscape reveals a clear trend of differentiation.
According to Sigmaintell data, BOE maintained its leading position with shipments of approximately 140 million units and a 46.7% market share, covering a-Si/LTPS/Oxide/OLED technologies and serving global mainstream brands, demonstrating typical "platform-type vendor" characteristics; CSOT saw shipments surge by 123.1% year-on-year, reaching nearly 40 million units, rapidly scaling up by relying on demand from brand customers. Meanwhile, Taiwanese manufacturers, under overall pressure, stabilized by relying on demand from South China white-label and tablet-like devices: Innolux's shipments grew by approximately 21.3% year-on-year while maintaining orders from brands like Samsung, Amazon, and Lenovo; LG Display, leveraging stable orders from Apple and its high-end OLED product布局, continued to consolidate its strategic position in the high-end tablet panel market. Mainland newcomers like HKC and Tianma are also accelerating their layouts, further concentrating medium-sized display capacity in Mainland China. Overall, market concentration at the top remains high, but the core of competition is shifting—from "production capacity scale" to a contest of comprehensive capabilities involving "technological diversity + customer openness." Panel enterprises possessing full-stack technology layouts and broad customer collaboration capabilities are leading the reshaping of the new industrial landscape.
In summary, cost pressures will dominate the rhythm in 2026, with the tablet industry's growth receding and shifting from expansion to structural optimization. Entering 2026, influenced by continuous price increases and supply fluctuations of memory components, cost pressures across the tablet computer supply chain have risen significantly. Some brands have already begun to lower shipment targets and inventory preparation节奏, indicating that the overall market's expansion momentum faces阶段性 disturbances. Against the backdrop of synchronized cost increases for raw materials and core components, the supply chain's sensitivity to demand fluctuations has noticeably increased, leading to a more cautious market operating rhythm. In this environment, brand manufacturers are becoming more prudent in product planning and resource allocation: on one hand, low-to-mid-end products are highly sensitive to cost changes, and rising memory prices will directly compress profit margins and weaken terminal price elasticity; on the other hand, while high-end models possess some pricing power, they are constrained by user base size and replacement cycles, making it difficult to fully offset the pressure from the slowdown in the low-to-mid-end market, resulting in a分化 of overall growth momentum.
Further analysis indicates that rising memory costs are accelerating the structural adjustment process within the tablet market. Low-end a-Si LCD models, with their limited profit margins and weak price tolerance, will be the first to bear the pressure. Some brands may respond to the cost shock by scaling down product line规模, extending model lifecycles, or reducing investment in new products. Mid-range products are accelerating their transition towards a "cost-performance + efficiency-oriented" approach, enhancing competitiveness through specification optimization and supply chain integration. The high-end and tablet-like device segments, relying on their scenario value and differentiation capabilities, are expected to maintain relatively robust development trends. Overall, Sigmaintell believes that the rise in memory prices has gradually evolved from a temporary cost disturbance into a structural variable affecting industry节奏 and the competitive格局. The main theme for the tablet industry's development in 2026 will shift from a单纯 pursuit of shipment expansion to a comprehensive contest involving cost control capabilities, product structure optimization capabilities, and the ability to deeply cultivate application scenarios. Manufacturers possessing advantages in scale, supply chain collaboration capabilities, and the ability to adjust their product portfolios are expected to further consolidate their leading positions during this new adjustment cycle.
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