This year, the main brands, including Apple, Samsung, Asus and Acer, have already attracted the interest of consumers around the world and successfully popularized their first wave of products among early adopters. In addition, observations from user feedback about their experiences and reasons for buying have already confirmed that smartwatches have already carved out a significant market segment.

Furthermore, from the perspective of supply chains, the major global chip companies and memory and panel manufacturers have this year launched solutions for smartwatch applications. The drastically simplified manufacturing procedures for smartwatches have made the design and manufacture of smartwatches easier.

Moreover, in smartwatch supply chains, the most crucial but also the most difficult aspects are the design of flexible OLED panels and touch modules, and this directly affects users’ experiences using smartwatch products. It also influences companies’ costs and competitiveness.

Taking the Apple Watch as an example, according to a preliminary report by DisplaySearch, the total production cost for the OLED and integrated touch used in the Apple Watch was US$27. Consequently, if up and coming companies want to have an advantage in terms of cost, they absolutely must seek out the solutions providers with the most competitive costs, and this will provide further market opportunities to flexible OLED touch panel module providers.

To make touch panels fit in the most economical ways, their manufacturing should be directly carried out in panel factories; however, currently the flexible panels used in smartwatches have very limited production capacities and economically viable production scales have yet to take shape. Therefore, panel manufacturers are not yet able to provide standardized touch-installed products, so brands and smartwatch OEMd/ODMs must seek out for a third party to complete touch function of smartwatch. Hence this presents new market opportunities for providers that specialize in touch technologies.

The Taiwanese company Promell Materials Technology is one such provider. They have already developed a 3D Curved Touch Panel Module product, and they specialize in touch solutions intended for smartwatch arched structure designs. In addition, it can fit on a flexible display panel, such as OLED.

Promell at Touch Taiwan 2015 showcased a series of product modules for smartwatch touch applications, and there is an extremely large demand for smartwatches with ample display areas. Nicole Teng, Assistant Manager of the Product Management Department of Promell stated that the first and second line global smartwatch companies are already collaborating with other companies and demand is rapidly growing.

In addition to Pomell, TPK is another Taiwanese provider which specializes in touch technology. In addition, TPK currently supply touch modules for the Apple Watch.

(TR/Phil Sweeney)