When the concept of "Metaverse" exploded, the technology and capital circles paid great attention to it. How many companies are highlighted because their products or technologies are associated with the concept. However, over time, the "Metaverse" gradually faded out of the public eye. So, has the "Metaverse" heat gone away? Has the "Metaverse" outlet already passed?
Last year, Facebook changed its name to "Meta", adding fuel to the popularity of the Metaverse. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said when changing the name, "This (Metaverse) will be an important part of the next chapter of Internet development after the mobile Internet." However, the highly anticipated Metaverse is not presenting surprises for Meta so far. According to the financial report disclosed by Meta, Reality Labs, its division responsible for the Metaverse business, lost $10.19 billion in fiscal 2021, while revenue was only $2.27 billion. Coincidentally, Roblox, known as the “first stock of the Metaverse”, has revenue of $1.919 billion in fiscal 2021. Up 108% compared to fiscal 2020; net loss was $491 million. In 2020, the net loss was $253 million -- doubled in revenue and a wider loss gap. China's Metaverse concept stocks also frequently suffer losses or decline in performance.
On the other hand, the influence from government supervision has also made the development of the Metaverse "cold": On December 23, 2021, the website of the State Supervisory Commission of China reminded in the article "How the Metaverse Rewrites Human Social Life": With the popularity of the Metaverse topic, some routines using related concepts to "money" have emerged one after another. At present, there may be various risks such as capital manipulation, public opinion touts, and economic risks.
From the capital market to the supervision of government departments, the development of the Metaverse seems to have been poured cold water. So, is that really the case? The answer is naturally no.
The Metaverse has the positive effect of gathering attention and integrating multiple industries for common development, but also has the negative side that is prone to bubbles, which needs to be viewed dialectically. In addition, the popularity of the Metaverse is unlikely to be fast, and its unsatisfactory performance in the capital market is a normal phenomenon, and policy supervision is conducive to allowing the Metaverse to find a balance between development and security. It is also good for flexible led display. Therefore, the "cold water" poured at this time just brought a "cold thinking" to the development of the Metaverse, allowing people to rationally view the gap between the future and the present of the Metaverse, without excessively consuming the heat of the Metaverse, allowing the The universe goes from "virtual fire" to "real fire". Taking LED companies as an example, Metaverse has become a common track for the entire industry chain. Relevant companies are actively touching Metaverse through relevant technologies, products and solutions on their original track.
A major feature of the Metaverse is "immersion". Based on this, whether it is VR/AR equipment or a large screen that can bring virtual and real blending experience, it has become the focus of LED enterprises. LED chip companies generally believe that Mini backlight and Micro LED technology will be applied to VR/AR devices on a large scale. Among them, Mini backlight technology is mainly used in low-end VR products, and Micro LED has excellent performance in contrast, response time, energy consumption, viewing angle, resolution and other aspects, and is one of the best display technologies for VR/AR devices , but limited by technology and cost, it mainly appears in concept products at this stage.
While the packaging companies are optimistic about the application prospects of Mini/Micro LED display technology in the Metaverse, they also point out the main challenges that Mini/Micro LED is currently facing. Such as transparent led display. OLED cannot meet the requirements in terms of high brightness and response speed. VR/AR needs the blessing of Mini/Micro LED technology in the subsequent promotion and application. The main challenge faced by Mini/Micro LED is mainly from cost. There are many difficulties, but packaging companies are actively overcoming them.
Different from upstream chips and midstream packaging, display companies pay attention to the opportunities of small-sized screens in the Metaverse era, and also pay attention to the world of virtual and real integration created by large LED screens, and their applications under the concept of Metaverse.
On January 24, 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a press conference on the development of SMEs. The meeting stated that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will focus on cultivating a group of "little giant" companies that are deeply involved in the fields of industrial Internet, industrial software, network and data security, and smart sensors. Cultivate a group of innovative small and medium-sized enterprises that enter emerging fields such as Metaverse, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.
It can be seen that although the Metaverse is still in the early stage of development and has a long way to go in the future, the Metaverse is not only regarded as the "second growth curve" by relevant companies, but has also been supported, encouraged and guided by the government. .
In addition, we can also see that among the Metaverse concept stocks, game companies are still in the conceptual stage, and LED screens, as the junction of virtual and reality, have rich imagination space for future development. It can use P1.5 flexible LED display. LEDinside, an optoelectronics research division of TrendForce, pointed out that Mini LED will be the application with the most growth momentum in the LED segments in the next few years; Micro LED will take longer to achieve mass production, but it is still The most important development direction of the LED industry in the future, among which the large-scale display, wearable device and head-mounted device market have unlimited potential.
Post time: Nov-04-2022