[THE INVESTOR] Shipments of organic light-emitting diode panels for mobile use are estimated to exceed 300 million units this year and a whopping 1 billion units by 2019, a market research firm predicted on Aug. 16.

Currently, Samsung Electronics dominates the market with nearly 97 percent of smaller OLED sales. 

According to UBI Research, shipments of 4-inch to 6-inch OLED panels, mostly used for smartphones, will increase 27 percent to some 318.8 million units this year compared to a year ago.

The figure is expected to continue growing to 505.3 million in 2017, 902.5 million in 2018, 1.17 billion in 2019 and 1.37 billion in 2020.

The robust growth will be led especially by flexible OLED, which is increasingly being adopted by smartphone-makers globally.

Rigid OLED still outpaces the flexible type, making up 78 percent of total shipments this year. But the portion of flexible OLED could surge to 56 percent in 2018.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com">jylee@heraldcorp.com)