Printed electronics will experience a CAGR of 8.6%

28th April 2015

IDTechEx Ltd

Siobhan O'Gorman

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By Raghu Das

The printed electronics sector has been fascinating to follow and report on. Several billion dollar industries such as OLED displays already exist but the OLEDs today are not printed. OLED displays alone exceeded $16bn in sales last year, driven by the need to differentiate in the tight margin LCD business. By revenue, the second largest sector is the printing of sensors. In 2014, the glucose test strip market accounted $6.4bn, while other sensor technology markets accounted for $80m.

Then there is the conductive ink market, which accounted for $2.3bn in 2014. This technology is used for bus bars on PV solar cells, touch screen edge electrodes for the touch panel sector and a diverse range of circuits, from switches and RFID antennas to smart packaging. According to an IDTechEx report, titled Printed, Flexible and Organic Electronics 2015-2025, the sector will experience a CAGR of 8.6% through to 2025.

Printed electronics is also being used to enable transistors, printed batteries, electrochromic displays and organic photovoltaics. Many incremental technology improvements have been made, and in the last 12 to 18 months something significant has happened: more companies are working to develop complete solutions, reflecting the need by customers to see full solutions. After all, users do not want to be integrators.

Examples of complete solutions include time temperature indicators, smart plasters and other products, some of which will be announced for the first time at the IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe event. Companies include Thin Film Electronics, Blue Spark, PragmatIC Printing and FlexEnable. Unless you are replacing or improving a sub-component that already exists, the most successful strategy seems to be in creating a new finished product to create a category and drive the market, rather than offering a partial solution or a sub-component. Companies such as Kent Displays have demonstrated this model successfully by creating products such as the Boogie Board, of which they continue to ship millions.

Printed Electronics Europe is scheduled to take place from 28^th to 29^th April in Berlin, Germany. Companies that will feature include Jaguar Land Rover, Qualcomm, Shell, Ericsson, Stora Enso, United Technologies and Tesco.