COB production capacity sprints to 100,000 square meters, a new round of reshuffle is coming?

Recently, TCL Huaxing Suzhou MLED base has launched a new round of technical renovation of the COB production line. After the completion of the project, the monthly production capacity will be increased by 18,000 square meters; Huike went public to raise 8.5 billion yuan, of which 2 billion yuan was invested in the Mianyang Mini-LED smart manufacturing project.

Looking back on the first half of the year, the second phase of the Mini COB project of Zhaochi Crystal Display was started, Zhongqi Optoelectronics COB manufacturing base was built, Yuanxu Semiconductor planned to further increase COB production capacity, Shanxi Hi-Tech, Dacai Optoelectronics and other companies are also promoting equipment upgrades and manufacturing base construction...

Obviously, the scale of this round of COB production expansion is being further enlarged.

1. TCL CSOT and Huike are increasing their investment, and the production capacity competition has entered the deep water zone

In this round of COB production expansion, the most obvious change is that panel companies are becoming an important source of new production capacity.

Recently, Suzhou Huaxing Optoelectronic Display Co., Ltd. released bidding information for the "High Definition Mini LED COB Product Technology Transformation Project". According to the project information, this project is an expansion technical transformation project. The core is to add a Mini LED COB production workshop and introduce related production equipment. After the construction is completed, it will form a high-definition Mini LED COB display product production capacity of 18,000 square meters per month. The equipment configuration covers underfill dispensing, AOI detection, die-bonding section detection, lighting, thermal curing, module calibration and automated logistics.

In September 2025, TCL CSOT's Suzhou MLED base's first P1.2 Mini LED COB direct display product was officially mass-produced, marking its entry into the LED direct display market. In May this year, the core process equipment of the PH2 project of TCL CSOT's Suzhou MLED base was completed. After reaching full production, the monthly COB direct display production capacity will be increased from 6,000 pieces to 12,000 pieces.

From the perspective of product route, TCL Huaxing is further extending from P1.2 to P0.7-P2.6 and other wider product ranges.

In the past two years, Huike has increased its investment in MLEDs in Dongguan, Mianyang, Changsha, Nanchong and Zhengzhou. As it completes its listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's main board on June 26, the pace of construction of MLED projects will also accelerate.

According to the prospectus, Huike's IPO raised 8.5 billion yuan, of which 2 billion yuan was used for the "Mianyang Mini-LED Intelligent Manufacturing Project." The IPO fundraising will further provide financial support for related projects.

Huike Mianyang Mini LED project started in February 2025, planning to build 12 backlight module production lines and 8 direct display module production lines; in October 2025, Huike Mianyang LED direct display factory was opened and further promoted the industrialization of Micro LED products and direct display solutions.

BOE is an early panel company that has laid out the MLED industry chain. It has invested approximately 1 billion yuan to build the Zhuhai BOE Crystal Core MLED project. The factory area exceeds 40,000 square meters, the production line automation rate exceeds 95%, and the planned monthly COB production capacity reaches more than 10,000 square meters. The project will be officially delivered in mass production in March 2025, and the construction of the second phase of the PH2 project will be promoted simultaneously.

On August 30, 2025, the core process equipment of the Zhuhai Jingxin PH2 project was completed and moved into the factory, and the project entered the equipment installation and commissioning stage; in May 2026, a number of equipment manufacturers successively disclosed their winning bids for BOE Jingxin MLED production expansion project orders, confirming that the second phase of the expansion continues to advance.

The common actions of panel manufacturers are becoming increasingly clear: taking advantage of their original large-scale manufacturing advantages, MLED will be gradually transformed from an "extended business of the panel industry chain" into an independent display product line.

2. From Zhaochi to Yuanxu, COB’s new production capacity is accelerated

The entry of panel manufacturers has changed the competitive landscape of the COB industry, while the continued expansion of traditional LED companies has further amplified industry supply. Although LED companies rarely have plans to expand production this year, the construction of previously planned bases or production lines is still accelerating, which overall still pushes up total production capacity.

In April, the second phase of Zhaochi Crystal Display Mini COB display module project started construction. The project rents a 240,000-square-meter factory building in Future City B, and plans to expand the existing 3,000 RGB small-pitch LED display module COB packaging production lines in batches, eventually reaching a scale of 8,100 production lines. It is worth mentioning that in 2025, Zhaochi Crystal Display COB production capacity will reach about 25,000㎡/M.

As a vertically integrated enterprise in the LED industry chain, Zhaochi already has industry chain capabilities such as LED chips, packaging, and displays. This time we continue to expand COB production capacity, and the core logic is still to reduce costs on a large scale.

According to news on August 1, Zhongqi Optoelectronics has now built a fully automated COB manufacturing base with a dust-free workshop of 24,000 square meters as the core, with a stable monthly production capacity of 10,000 square meters. Previously, Zhongqi has achieved full-pitch mass production of fully flip-chip Mini COB in the P0.4-P2.5 range, and formed dual technical routes of COB and MIP.

Yuanxu Semiconductor recently revealed the latest production capacity situation. Its Tianjin Super Factory vertically integrates chip manufacturing, mass transfer, advanced packaging and test integration. The project is expected to achieve a production capacity of 6,000㎡/month by the end of 2026, further doubling the previous plan of 3,000㎡/month. Based on the integrated layout of chips, packages and modules, Yuanxu Semiconductor has formed certain advantages in product development, process collaboration and cost control.

Shanxi Hi-Tech revealed in June that the Hi-Tech Group has launched technical transformation actions to update equipment and increase production capacity, and plans to invest 500 million to 1 billion yuan to introduce new fully automatic equipment in batches to replace inefficient and old equipment and further release LED production capacity. At present, its MLED 10,000-level clean production workshop has been equipped with more than 200 sets of equipment, and its COB products cover P0.47 and other small-pitch products.

Dacai Optoelectronics is an LED display company that has been actively promoting factory construction this year. Its Western Super Factory was officially put into operation in Leshan City, Sichuan on August 3. The main area of the first phase of the factory is about 14,000 square meters. It mainly produces commercial LED displays and SMT patch products. The company has previously formed three major super factories in the east, west, and south, covering various process routes such as SMD, GOB/HOB, COB, and MIP.

It should be noted that Dacai Western Super Factory has not separately disclosed the new COB production capacity, but from the overall layout of the company, COB, MIP, etc. are important components of its expansion of manufacturing capabilities.

It is also worth noting that Ningbo Jingyingyingyingwang, which has newly entered the COB track in 2026, has also put into operation an automated COB production line. The company was established in 2026 as a joint venture between GQY Video, Yinwang Electronics, and Shenzhen Weishi Commercial Display. It focuses on the research and development and manufacturing of high-end full flip-chip COB small-pitch LED displays. The automated production line has been officially put into production in June, with a planned annual production capacity of 35,000 square meters.

3. Supply and demand are gradually declining, and a round of reshuffle may be coming

Judging from the above projects, COB has entered the stage of large-scale manufacturing. What is noteworthy behind the expansion is that the expansion rate of COB production capacity has been significantly faster than the release rate of industry demand.

TrendForce data shows that global COB production capacity will be approximately 60,000 ㎡/month in 2024 and will reach 88,700 ㎡/month in 2025. New production capacity will be approximately 20,000-30,000 ㎡/month, and a large part of it will come from investment by panel manufacturers. In 2026, the expansion will continue, and the total COB production capacity is expected to exceed 100,000 m2/M.

The question is, can demand keep up?

From a global market perspective, LED direct display still has room for growth. TrendForce predicts that applications such as LED all-in-one computers and movie LED displays will become important growth drivers in 2026.

Among them, all-in-one machines are a clear incremental market for COB. TrendForce data shows that global LED all-in-one computer shipments will reach more than 14,000 units in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 39%, exceeding expectations. One obvious trend is that the demand for COB all-in-one machines from overseas customers has increased significantly, which has further increased the penetration rate of COB in the all-in-one machine field.

In addition, application scenarios such as overseas commercial displays, educational conferences, virtual filming, rentals, and home theaters can all provide incremental space for COB. From a regional market perspective, emerging markets such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Asia, Africa and Latin America are expected to continue to contribute demand.

However, it is also true that the domestic market is under pressure. According to "TrendForce 2026 Global LED Display Market Outlook and Price and Cost Analysis", China's LED display terminal demand performance is not ideal in 2025. Factors such as government budget contraction, declining social investment willingness, and price competition will affect the market; in contrast, the Asian, African and Latin American markets still maintain growth, and the European and American markets maintain slight growth.

This creates a contradiction in the current COB market: overseas demand is growing, but new domestic production capacity is also being released rapidly. More importantly, COB is not a “new market” in the full sense.

Taking P1.2 as an example, COB is rapidly replacing the market that originally belonged to SMD; as costs drop, P1.5 and P1.8 have also begun to become the targets of COB manufacturers. In other words, part of the driving force for COB's rapid growth comes from technological substitution, not all from new demand. Therefore, when more companies expand production to P1.2, P1.5, P1.8 and other markets at the same time, competition on the supply side is bound to further intensify.

Against this background, as key variables in the industry, panel companies such as TCL CSOT and Huike have increased their efforts to expand production. Fierce competition is inevitable in the short term. The professional division of labor between the manufacturing and brand sides may be further clarified in the future.

The LED direct display market is likely to see two changes in the future: On the one hand, leading companies will further expand their market share by virtue of their scale and cost advantages, and industry concentration will increase. On the other hand, if small and medium-sized enterprises continue to compete for price and production capacity on standardized products, they will face increasing pressure.

This does not mean that there are no opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. On the contrary, after the large-scale expansion of COB production, some markets with lower degree of standardization and more dispersed demand may become breakthroughs for small and medium-sized enterprises, such as XR virtual shooting, creative display, transparent screen, rental display and other customized applications.

Conclusion

As more projects are implemented, global COB production capacity will reach a new high level. At the same time, the LED direct display market demand is still growing, but the pressure on the domestic market and intensifying industry competition will also become problems that companies must face.

For the entire industry, COB is entering a new stage of large-scale development. In the future, with the further release of production capacity, the industrial competition pattern will gradually change, and market concentration is expected to further increase. Instead of competing for scale, competing for technology, applications, and customers may become a more realistic choice for LED small and medium-sized enterprises in the next stage.