Whole-chain resonance: nearly 50 display companies try to say goodbye to involution

Price increases are becoming a collective action in the LED display industry chain.

Since the beginning of the year, the LED display industry has been flooded with price adjustment letters. According to Display statistics, nearly 50 companies have jointly adjusted prices, covering core links in the entire industry chain such as chips, packaging, power supplies, ICs and displays. A coordinated price repair action across the entire chain is now underway.

This is not an isolated wave of price increases, nor is it a simple cost transfer, but more like a coordinated adjustment of the industrial chain. It is caused by passive situations, but also by the whole industry's desire to actively bid farewell to low-price involution. Will this be one of the turning points for the industry towards healthy development?

Cost pressure: inevitable pricing restructuring

The direct driving force behind this price adjustment is the continued high rise in core raw material prices. Data shows that from the beginning of 2025 to February 2026, the price of gold has increased by more than 108%, the price of silver has increased by 303%, and the price of copper has increased by 58.7%. The prices of key materials such as wafers, glass cloth, and sheets have risen simultaneously, and the upward trend has not seen an inflection point.

For the LED industry chain, precious metals and non-ferrous metals are the inevitable cost cornerstones. Gold and silver are used in core processes such as die bonding and bonding. Copper is widely used in PCB substrates and wires. The wafer is the underlying carrier of the driver IC. When the cost of raw materials increases exponentially, old pricing and even profit retention may no longer cover the real expenditure on the cost side.

Compared with the two rounds of price adjustments in 2021 and 2024, the core driving force of this round of price increases is more of a structural increase in the prices of basic raw materials.

Policy shift: anti-involution moves from consensus to action

Cost is the trigger, and policy provides the path and direction for the industry to "anti-involution." The reason why price increases can evolve from the behavior of a single company to the resonance of the entire chain is inseparable from the strong support of macro policies.

In July 2024, the Political Bureau meeting of the Central Committee proposed "preventing vicious competition" for the first time; in July 2025, the Central Financial and Economic Commission meeting further clarified that "governing low-price and disorderly competition" was included in the core agenda of building a unified national market. The meeting clearly stated that "guiding enterprises to improve product quality" and "promoting the orderly exit of backward production capacity" - anti-involution officially moved from policy declaration to systematic implementation.

Prohibiting "sales below cost" does not restrict market vitality, but provides institutional space for reasonable pricing. In the past few years, the LED display industry has fallen into a vicious cycle of "more losses, more losses, more losses": companies are competing to lower prices to maintain market share, profit margins have been squeezed to zero or even negative values, R&D investment has shrunk, product homogeneity has intensified, and it is difficult for end users to obtain stable quality assurance from low prices.

Policy guidance will also allow the industry to think about how to break this dilemma. When companies no longer need to overdraft themselves in exchange for orders, prices can return to other functions besides regulating supply and demand—reflecting costs, supporting innovation, and selecting and stratifying.

In this context, "prohibiting sales below cost price" may become the "consensus" of a mature and healthy industry, and companies no longer need to use suicidal price cuts to grab share. The essence of this round of price increases is to return prices to a reasonable range, allow the industrial chain to have reasonable and healthy profit margins, allow companies to have funds to invest in research and development, improve quality and services, and then gradually enter a positive cycle of "reasonable pricing - profit restoration - innovation and upgrading".

The industry consensus has become increasingly clear: Vicious competition below cost should be withdrawn, and reasonable profits should be retained in all links, which is in line with the long-term interests of the industry. This is not only in response to policy guidance, but also the only way for the market to repair itself.

Synergy of price increase + production reduction: long-term repair and dual adjustment

From the current perspective, this round of price increases across the entire chain has more advantages than disadvantages. However, whether prices can be sustained and whether the industry can truly get out of involution depends on the simultaneous repair of supply and demand relations, as well as the common determination and tacit understanding between manufacturers.

If we only raise prices without adjusting supply, pressure will only shift within the industrial chain, and excess and low profits will not be eradicated;

This is another profound meaning of this round of industrial action. Only if supporting facilities take the initiative to reduce or control production, or if downstream demand steadily increases, can price returns be sustained.

In the past, long-term oversupply and low profits or even losses across the industry were the root causes of involution. At present, leading companies are taking the lead in raising prices, responding to the whole chain, and actively controlling production to optimize supply. This has the opportunity to push the industry from "fighting for price" to "fighting for technology, quality, and service." This is not only a self-correction of the market, but also one of the ways to end vicious competition and reshape the industrial ecology.

Profit rectification: the industry needs to move from high growth to high-quality growth

The LED display industry needs to complete a key shift: from pursuing high-scale growth to high-quality growth.

The industry is no longer oriented by "low price for volume", but by clearing out backward production capacity, stratified competition, focusing on technology iteration, and improving the quality of profits to rebuild long-term competitiveness.

This path has been verified by leading companies. Experts say Display observation found that Leyard has achieved profitability improvement and profit return by adjusting its business ideas. On January 22, Leyard released its annual performance forecast. In 2025, the company's net profit attributable to the parent company is expected to be 300 million to 380 million yuan, and non-net profit after deducting is expected to be 220 million to 300 million yuan. Both have turned losses into profits year-on-year, becoming a typical example of high-quality transformation in the industry: the company has proactively shrunk low-margin businesses, optimized product structure, turned losses into profits, and improved profit quality and cash flow simultaneously, confirming the feasibility of "removing involution and focusing on value."

This is no accident. In the past two years, Leyard has taken the initiative to clear out its low-margin general-purpose display production capacity, and at the same time, focused the released R&D resources on next-generation technology routes such as Hi-Micro. Currently, the first-phase production capacity has been implemented and the second-phase expansion is ready. It is seizing the high-end display track with core technologies such as substrateless and massive transfer. This period of closing and releasing represents a fundamental switch in business logic—no longer pursuing the size of each order, but rather maintaining the value of each order.

This is the ultimate goal of anti-involution in the industry: using innovation to drive efficiency, using technology to eliminate backwardness, and making the industry truly healthy and sustainable.

Experts say Research summary: Collaboration should not stop at price

Nearly 50 LED display companies have successively adjusted prices, which is the result of the resonance of raw material cost pressure, anti-involution policy orientation and industry self-discipline and active regulation. It is also a potential attempt for the industry to bid farewell to involution and rebuild the pricing order. If the industry chain can learn how to maximize synergy, it will also mark that the industry can bid farewell to the involution model of exchanging overdraft for share, and re-enter the benign track of healthy development and decent competition.

But synergy shouldn’t stop at price.

Cost-driven is only the starting point. The end point of price increases is not higher, but more reasonable. Value-driven is the real direction. The path has been clearly delineated at the policy level: reasonable pricing in exchange for profit margins, profit margins to support R&D investment, and R&D investment to improve product quality. This is a leap from "price competition" to "value competition", and it is also the only way for anti-involution to move from policy declaration to industrial practice.

The LED display industry has never lacked production capacity, but what it lacks is the sense of order to provide stable quality at reasonable prices; there is no shortage of enterprises, but what it lacks is the determination to hedge short-term fluctuations with long-termism.

Therefore, true industrial collaboration does not require every company to increase prices.

Some people use technology to redefine prices, while others use efficiency moats to digest fluctuations. Leading domestic listed companies such as Leyard, Unilumin Technology and Absen all have their own thinking and paths; more people are rebuilding the long-out-of-order pricing system through price linkage. These three paths all point in the same direction: let prices return to cost and value, and let competition shift from overdraft to creation.

Therefore, the end point of anti-involution is the orderly withdrawal of backward production capacity, the return of high-quality supply, the profit level of each link in the industrial chain that is sufficient to support innovation, and the ability of everyone to make money on their own track.

Pioneers represented by Leyard have taken the lead in using profit performance to prove that high-quality growth is not empty talk - high-quality performance is the last mile of the anti-involution breakout battle.

When you reach the middle of the mountain, you should stay steady.

From passive pressure to active adjustment, from single point price increase to full chain linkage, from price repair to value reconstruction. Experts say they sincerely hope that this industry breakthrough, which starts with price increases, can truly start a new healthy and sustainable cycle for the LED display industry.

On March 4th, experts say it will be a grand event for the new year, and everyone will be scheduled to brainstorm on the spot.

This article was originally created by [Experts Talk about Display], focusing on display industry technology and market analysis, providing in-depth industry insights. Follow the official account and reply to "Report" to get the latest display industry white paper entry.