Samsung reclaimed the No.1 slot in the global smartphone display market in Q3 as the company capitalized on record-high demand for AMOLEDs, says IHS Markit.

Samsung grew is sharevfrom 21.3% in Q2  to 29% in Q3, says IHS.

That was enough to drive Samsung past BOE Display to take the market lead for the first time since the Q4 2018.

“All the major smartphone brands—including Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi—have adopted AMOLED technology in their high-end models in 2019,” says IHS’ David Hsieh.

Smartphone AMOLED shipments totaled 146 million units in the third quarter, up from 93 million in the second quarter, a record quarterly high for the display technology. In comparison, a-Si TFT LCD shipments totaled 177 million.

Meanwhile, LTPS TFT LCD shipments for smartphones totaled 144 million. This marks this first time that quarterly AMOLED shipments have surpassed LTPS TFT LCD shipments in the smartphone market.

“As more and more smartphone brands adopt AMOLEDs for their high-end and even mid-range models, the market is expected to continue to boom,” said Hsieh, “this is opening the door for up-and-coming Chinese AMOLED suppliers like BOE, Visionox, ChinaStar, Tianma and EverDislpay to make gains in the market.”

However, these firms may have difficulty catching up in critical manufacturing technologies supporting form factors that are challenging to produce, including 3.5D edge curved cover, touch-on thin-film encapsulation, chip on polyimide (COP) driver IC bonding, OLED module contrast and brightness adjustment and compensation.

BOE’s share of the smartphone display market decreased to 19.6% in Q3, down from 23.8% in Q2.

No.-3 ranked Tianma held a 12.5 percent share, up slightly from 12.3 percent in the second quarter.