OLED shipment volume falls short of expectations; BOE admits facing three pressures; 2026 growth target further declines

How AI · Patent Disputes Affect BOE OLED Product Overseas Order Releases?

This article source: Times Weekly Author: Guan Yue, Han Xun

The “big brother” of the display industry, BOE (A-shares: 000725.SZ; B-shares: 200725.SZ), has gotten through a fiscal year that was under considerable pressure.

On the afternoon of April 2, BOE held an online performance briefing for 2025. The event was attended by Chairman Chen Yanshun, CEO Feng Qiang, COO Wang Xiping, Independent Director Wang Tuoxiang, Chief Financial Officer Yang Xiaoping, and Board Secretary Guo Hong, who answered questions that the market was concerned about. Times Weekly reporters participated throughout the event and asked questions.

Previously, on the evening of March 31, BOE disclosed its 2025 annual report. For the full year, the company achieved total revenue of 2045.90 billion yuan, up 3.13% year on year; achieved net profit attributable to shareholders of 58.57 billion yuan, up 10.03% year on year; and achieved non-GAAP (non-recurring) net profit of 42.30 billion yuan, up 10.25% year on year.

Image source: Wind

In this annual report, Times Weekly reporters found that BOE’s display devices business in 2025 generated revenue of approximately 1664.17 billion yuan, still at a high level accounting for 81.34% of total revenue, but its year-on-year growth rate was only about 0.86%. As for the weak growth of its core business, Chen Yanshun explained that the company’s shipments of display-device products are still growing, but the average price has declined compared with the same period last year—especially, the price declines of major products in the second half of 2025 have been obvious.

However, although BOE’s overall display devices business can be said to have been held back by pricing pressure, its OLED products in 2025 also failed to meet expectations on shipment volume.

A record table of BOE’s investor relations activities dated at the end of October 2025 says that the company’s OLED shipment volume in Q3 2025 was about 40 million units, and that it “expects to achieve double-digit growth for the full year.” But in the 2025 annual report, the company only mentioned that “flexible OLED device shipment volume remains growing,” and did not disclose specific figures as it usually does.

In response, at the performance briefing mentioned above, Times Weekly reporters followed up with further questions. Feng Qiang said that BOE’s flexible AMOLEd products shipment volume in 2025 exceeded 1.5 hundred million units, an increase of about 8% year on year. For the shortfall of shipment volume growth versus expectations, Feng Qiang explained that it was affected by three factors: first, patent disputes in the AMOLED field have caused overseas customers to worry about related risks, leading to more conservative order releases; second, the “national subsidy” policy only covers models below 6000 yuan, so limited benefits have accrued to the high-end products that the company focuses on, such as foldables and LTPO; third, the company still has room to improve its lean management, and needs to further enhance preparations for external risk shocks.

And when asked by investors about OLED products’ future growth targets, Chen Yanshun also gave a relatively conservative number. He said that, based on current market judgment, the company’s shipment target for 2026 would be set at 1.6 hundred million units, and its target shipment volume for 2028 would be 2.0 hundred million units. Among them, the target growth rate for 2026 is about 6.67%, lower than the 8% growth rate in 2025.

Chen Yanshun explained that in 2026, there are uncertainties in the international political and economic environment. Combined with fluctuations in the supply of bulk commodities and sharp increases in the prices of certain raw materials such as storage, prices of mobile terminal products will also rise to varying degrees, thereby affecting terminal sales. Consulting agencies expect that global smartphone sales will decline by 13% in 2026, and global flexible AMOLED shipment volume will decline by 2%.

After the annual report was released, BOE’s share price fluctuated slightly. It closed up 2.56% on April 1, down 1.5% on April 2, and down 0.51% on April 3, to close at 3.93 yuan per share. Its total market capitalization fell to around 145 billion yuan.

OLED still suffering significant losses

Tianyancha shows that BOE was established in April 1993, and its registered address is in Chaoyang District, Beijing. Its A-shares were listed on the main board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in January 2001, and its B-shares were listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in June 1997. At present, it has formed a business architecture with semiconductors and displays as the core, and integrated development in “IoT innovation, sensors and solutions, MLED, and smart medical engineering,” under the “1+4+N+ecosystem” business model.

Image source: Tianyancha

“1” refers to BOE’s core main business of display devices. Although its revenue growth in 2025 was weak, its shipment volume still maintained steady growth. At the performance briefing mentioned above, Chen Yanshun said that BOE’s shipments of LCD and OLED products in 2025 both grew by 8% year on year. According to the financial report, BOE’s TFT-LCD and AMOLED sales were 90032K㎡ and 2264K㎡, respectively, with year-on-year growth of 8.3% and 8.17%.

Among them, LCD products have clear advantages. The annual report states that in 2025, BOE’s overall LCD shipments, as well as in its five major application areas—smartphones, tablets, laptops, monitors, and TVs—maintained the top position globally, and it also dominated medium- and large-sized segments such as TVs, monitors, and laptops.

However, besides not meeting growth expectations, OLED products are also facing a profitability dilemma. At the performance briefing, Chen Yanshun was candid: in 2025, BOE’s OLED product revenue declined by 10%, and it still recorded losses at a fairly large scale. He said the reasons were multifaceted, with gaps in “internal lean management, materials cost control, product development, and quality control,” among other areas. However, he said he remains optimistic about the future, saying, “In 2026, we will do more in-depth and detailed work in areas such as quality improvement, process enhancement, and optimization of product technology development and production processes. We are confident that OLED profitability will be improved significantly in the coming year.”

Looking beyond the core business, BOE’s four major “growth engines” in 2025 performed quite well.

According to the financial report, BOE’s IoT innovation business, sensor business, MLED business, and smart medical engineering business achieved revenue of 389.49 billion yuan, 5.87 billion yuan, 93.16 billion yuan, and 19.02 billion yuan in 2025, respectively, with year-on-year growth of 15.14%, 52.00%, 9.81%, and 3.40%, respectively. The four businesses together accounted for 24.81% of revenue, while from 2021 to 2024, their shares were 13.98%, 17.15%, 23.80%, and 22.45%, respectively.

Image source: BOE’s 2025 annual report

However, BOE’s smart medical engineering business in 2025 also continued to incur losses. Its operating costs were 19.19 billion yuan and had not yet been able to cover its revenue. At the above performance briefing, an investor asked about the reasons for the losses and whether the business could be “spun off from the listed company.” Feng Qiang did not answer directly when responding. Instead, he said that this business is the implementation of the company’s “Screen IoT” strategy in the health sector, and in 2025 it “achieved continuous and stable growth.”

Regarding part of the “N+ ecosystem,” although the financial report did not disclose specific data, Feng Qiang mentioned at the performance briefing that in 2025, BOE’s “4+N” business technology products achieved major breakthroughs, and both categories achieved relatively rapid growth year on year.

“Stock trading” earned 450 million yuan

The company is profitable, yet buying its stocks did not make money—which is also the focus of investors at this performance briefing.

In terms of profit, BOE’s net profit and non-recurring net profit in 2025 both achieved 10% year-on-year growth. But its earnings per share were only 0.16 yuan per share. Over the past several years, the company kept increasing its share capital, diluting this earnings.

Wind data shows that at the time BOE’s B-shares were first listed, the total number of shares outstanding was 549.554 million shares. After A-shares were listed, the total number of shares did not change. Later, through multiple share issuances, transfers, and other measures, the total number of shares increased significantly, and by the end of 2025 it jumped to 3.7414 billion shares. Among them, large amounts of additional issuance included: in 2014, it issued 217.68 million shares through a private placement, raising 45.713 billion yuan; in 2021, it issued 36.50 million shares through a private placement, raising 20.333 billion yuan.

As for stock-price performance, since BOE’s listing, its highest price reached 11.29 yuan per share. For most of the time, it fluctuated between 1 yuan per share and 6 yuan per share. Over more than 20 years since listing, the cumulative adjusted gain/loss is 10.95%.

Image source: Wind

From the perspective of dividends, BOE paid dividends only 4 times from 2000 to 2014. Starting in 2015, it has paid dividends for 12 consecutive years, but only at the end of 2021 did the dividend yield exceed 2%. At the end of 2025, the dividend yield was 1.33%, below Wind’s All A average of 2.37%.

At the above performance briefing, Chen Yanshun was candid: since BOE’s listing, it has raised more than 90 billion yuan through equity financing in the capital markets. “Without the strong support of shareholders, we wouldn’t have grown to where we are today. BOE is grateful in our hearts,” he said. And now that the company’s industry scale has reached the world’s top tier and operating cash flow is relatively ample, it has stopped equity financing in the capital markets in a timely manner and increased returns to shareholders.

Therefore, besides dividends, BOE began focusing on share buybacks. At the above performance briefing, Guo Hong said that since 2020, the company’s cumulative amount paid for A-share buybacks exceeded 7.1 billion yuan, and its cumulative amount paid for B-share buybacks was nearly 1 billion Hong Kong dollars. In 2026, the company will roll out a new buyback program: for A-shares, it plans to repurchase and cancel 500 million to 1 billion yuan; for B-shares, it plans to repurchase and cancel 500 million to 1 billion Hong Kong dollars.

However, compared with its financing amounts, BOE’s dividend and buyback efforts are still not that high. Wind data shows that BOE’s dividend-to-financing ratio (cumulative cash dividends since listing / cumulative equity fund-raising since listing) is 26.20%.

It is worth noting that after reviewing the financial reports, Times Weekly reporters found that in 2025, BOE itself “made quite a bit of money from stock trading.”

According to the financial report, in 2025 BOE used its own funds to purchase four stocks newly: Xingfu Electronics (688545.SH), ChaoYing Electronics (603175.SH), Qiangyi Co., Ltd. (688809.SH), and Shuangxin Materials (001369.SZ). The purchase amounts were 50.00 million yuan, 20.00 million yuan, 44.78 million yuan, and 1.00 hundred million yuan, respectively. The book value at period end increased to 108 million yuan, 49.0385 million yuan, 7016.68 million yuan, and 126 million yuan, respectively. The first two stocks both achieved returns of over 100%.

Including the stocks purchased earlier, BOE’s “stock trading” in 2025 generated book and actual returns of 450 million yuan, while in 2024 the returns were only 57.77 million yuan.