ITO and alternative transparent conductor markets to reach $9.4 billion

The market for transparent conductors used in display, photovoltaics and lighting markets will reach approximately US$9.4 billion by 2015, according to a new study from industry analysis firm NanoMarkets.

The report found that despite its many limitations, indium tin oxide (ITO) will maintain a large share of the transparent conductor market over the next decade and demand for this material will continue to grow even if indium prices continue to go up.

By 2015, NanoMarkets expects the market for ITO-coated substrates to reach $8.0 billion, but also believes that during that time ITO inks and pastes will be commercialised and reach almost $600 million in sales.

While many of materials that have been put forward as ITO replacements fall well below the standards set for conductivity and transparency achieved by ITO itself, formulations made from carbon nanotubes and other nano-engineered materials are only at the beginning of their performance improvement curves and could take a major slice of the ITO given time. By 2015, NanoMarkets expects substrates-coated nano-engineered transparent conductors to clock up over $750 million in revenues.

The critical applications markets for ITO replacements will be touch screen displays, according to the report. Here the addressable market is already large and what matters is not so much transparency and conductivity, but long-term resilience. This is an area in which ITO substitutes such as PEDOT and carbon nanotubes formulations perform well compared to ITO. By 2015, the value of transparent conductors that are used in touch screen displays will be almost $400 million.

Two emerging applications for ITO replacement that have significant potential in the long run are OLED lighting and flexible displays. These are both emerging markets, but ones that are not well suited to classical ITO approaches for a number of reasons, notably the need to use flexible substrates that do not respond well to the high-temperature manufacturing approaches typically associated with conventional ITO deposition, according to the report.

The market for transparent conductors for OLED lighting alone will total $670 million in 2015, with 70% of these revenues derived from alternatives to the classic ITO approach.

For more information about  the report, visit www.nanomarkets.net.