Industry analyst firm NanoMarkets has just released a new report on the markets for
silver-based transparent conducting materials.
NanoMarkets sees revenues from
the sale of silver-based transparent conductors reaching more than $540 million
by 2016. Details about this report, Markets for Nanosilver-based Transparent
Conductors -- 2011 report are at http://www.nanomarkets.net.
This report analyzes the demand for the silver-based inks and films
that are beginning to find their way into touch-screen displays and which,
according to NanoMarkets, may also be used in conventional flat panel displays
(FPD). Other applications where the report predicts silver-based transparent
conducting materials will be used include OLED and e-paper displays, OLED
lighting, thin-film and organic photovoltaics, anti-statics and EMI/RFI
shielding.
The report provides eight-year projections (both volume and
value) of all of the application areas listed above. It also identifies what the
implications are for other kinds of transparent conductor including carbon
nanotubes, transparent conducting oxides and conductive polymers as well as the
dominant ITO. Among the firms discussed in this report are: 3M, Agfa, Cambrios,
Carestream, Cima NanoTech, Dow Chemical, Fujifilm, Ferro, Kodak, PolyIC,
Saint-Gobain, Sigma Technologies, Sumitomo, Suzhou NanoGrid and Toray.
Key Findings from this report:
The touch-screen displays
business may be a good starting place for silver-based transparent conductor
businesses, and this is the market that most of the firms selling "transparent
silver" are aiming their marketing strategies at.But NanoMarkets believes that
the longer-term revenue potential for touch screens will be limited. The new
report indicates that touch-screen sensors will generate only $65.4 million in
silver-based transparent conductor sales by 2016.
According to
NanoMarkets, the only way for the materials discussed in this report to take off
commercially in a big way will be if the firms that supply them overcome the
resistance of the major FPD firms to making the switch from ITO. Encouragingly,
this new report indicates that we are seeing the first signs of this happening.
But it also warns that if significant barriers to entry persist in the display
industry, silver-based transparent conductors will never amount to more than a
niche business.
However, if the conventional display industry does open
up to silver-based transparent conductors, the market is likely to need these
materials delivered in new forms.In the same way that large display
manufacturers now do their own ITO sputtering, display firms of the future will
want to print their own transparent silver conductors.This will means that
today's tiny share of the silver transparent conductor market held by inks will
increase rapidly at the expense of the films that currently dominate.
NanoMarkets also expects to see a growing market for silver-based transparent
conductors on glass substrates.