Over the past decade, the rise of domestic liquid crystals has primarily relied on the massive existing market for TV and IT panels. As the industry enters a mature stage, the marginal benefits of relying solely on economies of scale have begun to diminish. Today, the "second growth curve" of domestic liquid crystals is expanding into emerging fields such as automotive displays and smart dimming. As an industry leader, Shijiazhuang Chengzhi Yonghua Display Materials Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chengzhi Yonghua"), a subsidiary of Chengzhi Co., Ltd., is exploring a new path for high-quality development through deep technological cultivation and patent layout.
Breaking Away from the Existing Market and Embracing Incremental Growth
The first wave of growth in domestic liquid crystal materials was essentially "following the panel makers." With the capacity expansion of panel giants such as BOE and TCL CSOT, local material companies gradually entered the liquid crystal market with cost advantages and proximity services, completing the substitution from nothing to something. However, as the panel industry enters the stage of competition in the existing market, the ceiling of this path has become clearly visible.
A relevant person in charge from Chengzhi Yonghua pointed out to reporters from China Electronics News that the "second growth curve" of domestic liquid crystals is not a simple expansion of market share, but an upgrade of application scenarios and a leap in technological levels.
The current opportunity lies in the fact that display technology is evolving from a single visual output to multi-functional directions such as interaction, adjustment, and light transmission: the stringent requirements of automotive displays for wide temperature ranges and high reliability, the explosive demand for smart dimming materials from smart buildings and NEVs, and the exploration of liquid crystal photonic devices in the field of optical communication, all constitute a brand-new incremental space.
Behind this judgment is a profound change in the global liquid crystal material industry landscape. Since 2024, Japan's DIC Corporation has gradually exited the liquid crystal mixture business by selling patent assets, and JNC's liquid crystal material business has also been acquired and integrated by domestic enterprises. The strategic contraction of Japanese manufacturers has directly broken the tripartite pattern of "Merck + JNC + DIC" that has been maintained for more than a decade, making room for domestic enterprises to take over high-end shares and build an independent patent system. For Chengzhi Yonghua, the key to seizing this round of opportunities lies in "precise positioning" — leveraging the R&D experience accumulated in the TFT liquid crystal field and the patent advantages formed after acquiring DIC patents to feed back into the high-end R&D of TFT mixed liquid crystals, extending the technological moat towards the high-end.
Data confirms the effectiveness of this transformation. In the first half of 2026, the sales volume of Chengzhi Yonghua's TFT-LCD liquid crystal materials increased by more than 30% year-on-year, its domestic market share continued to rise, and its batch introduction into mid-to-high-end panel production lines kept accelerating. From the perspective of the domestic market landscape, Chengzhi Yonghua, together with local enterprises, has continuously increased its market share, and domestic TFT liquid crystals have been widely recognized by downstream panel manufacturers. Facing the current situation of accelerated capacity expansion by domestic peers, Chengzhi Yonghua's choice is not to fall into a price war, but to adhere to "deep cultivation of core technologies": compared with international giants, its advantage lies in being closer to China, the world's largest panel production base, providing rapid response and customized formula adjustments; compared with domestic peers, nearly 40 years of profound technical accumulation and global patent barriers are core assets that are difficult to replicate.
Hard Support for High-End Breakthroughs
If the expansion of application scenarios has pointed out the direction for the development of Chengzhi Yonghua, then the accumulation of independent intellectual property rights is the "entry ticket" for whether domestic liquid crystals can truly move towards the high-end. In the liquid crystal material industry, patents are not only technological barriers but also a core consideration for downstream customers when choosing suppliers — panel giants are particularly worried about being forced to interrupt the supply chain due to the risk of patent infringement.
In 2024, Chengzhi Yonghua successfully acquired 1,183 liquid crystal material patent assets from Japan's DIC Corporation. This batch of patents covers major global markets including mainland China, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Europe, and India, covering multiple key technical fields such as negative liquid crystals. After the acquisition, the total number of patents held by Chengzhi Yonghua increased to over 1,600, forming a globally competitive patent pool.
"This is not just about buying a bunch of patents, but getting a 'pass' to participate in the global high-end market competition," an industry analyst pointed out. In the current global trade environment, only by having an independent, controllable, and infringement-free patent pool can we truly eliminate the worries of downstream panel giants and enable Chinese liquid crystal materials to dare to go global.
The value of patent layout is being rapidly realized on the R&D side. With the help of an AI intelligent formula system, Chengzhi Yonghua has significantly improved the R&D efficiency of liquid crystal materials and greatly shortened the cycle from the laboratory to mass production. In the localization development plan for mid-to-high-end TFT liquid crystals, the company has adopted a steady and sure strategy: on the one hand, consolidating its share in the medium and large-size fields such as smartphones and tablets; on the other hand, focusing on cutting-edge products such as liquid crystals for MiniLED backlight and high-transmittance liquid crystals. This differentiated competition strategy enables the company to continuously invest in high-intensity R&D while maintaining a reasonable profit margin, forming a virtuous cycle of "R&D — breakthrough — return — reinvestment."
Notably, Chengzhi Yonghua has firmly established its global leading position in the field of TN/STN monochrome liquid crystals, with products sold far and wide to Europe, the Americas, Southeast Asia, and China's Taiwan region. This foundation not only provides the company with stable cash flow but also serves as a "technological bedrock" for its expansion into the high-end TFT field and emerging applications — the monomer synthesis capabilities, formula debugging experience, and global customer resources accumulated in the monochrome liquid crystal field are being systematically transferred to new tracks.
Incremental Market on the Eve of an Explosion
In emerging application fields, automotive displays and smart dimming are currently the two most certain growth engines, and Chengzhi Yonghua has completed key technological positioning on these two tracks.
As the intelligence level of NEVs increases, the number of in-car screens has surged, requiring liquid crystal materials to maintain stable response speeds and contrast in extreme environments from -45°C to 100°C. Currently, in high-end automotive applications such as full LCD instrument panels over 10 inches and central control screens over 15 inches, overseas manufacturers still dominate. However, in mid-to-high-end and emerging fields such as passenger screens, rear-seat entertainment screens, and automotive panoramic roofs, the localization process has significantly accelerated. The wide-temperature-range automotive liquid crystal materials developed by Chengzhi Yonghua possess excellent response speed and high/low-temperature stability, strongly supporting the localization upgrade of intelligent cockpit display systems.
The smart dimming market is experiencing a leap from an "optional configuration" to a "standard feature." Data from Gaogong Intelligent Automotive Research Institute shows that in 2025, the penetration rate of passenger cars equipped with dimming glass in the Chinese market has approached 8%, and is expected to exceed 25% by 2028. Currently, there are multiple technical routes in the industry, such as PDLC and dye liquid crystals. The former has mature technology but limited heat insulation, while the latter can achieve light and dark switching with better shading and heat insulation performance, and is regarded as the next-generation mainstream solution. After nearly three years of research, Chengzhi Yonghua has successfully developed high-performance dye liquid crystals with low driving voltage, fast response, and low haze, and built a complete independent intellectual property system. The company has reached cooperation with top domestic and foreign manufacturers, covering both pre-installation and aftermarket. "2026 is a key growth year for automotive dye liquid crystals." According to the judgment of a relevant person in charge from Chengzhi Yonghua, as domestic leading car companies gradually make smart dimming glass a standard configuration, dye liquid crystals will rapidly increase in volume with better performance and cost advantages. Looking to the future, Chengzhi Yonghua will adhere to the "Liquid Crystal +" strategy, actively deploying new display materials such as OLED materials while deepening its main LCD business. In the first half of 2026, the company's OLED material shipments doubled year-on-year.
From the laboratory to the production line, from localized development to global participation, the advanced path of Chengzhi Yonghua reflects the collective leap of China's liquid crystal material industry. The strategic contraction of Japanese manufacturers has opened a window for reshaping the landscape, and the explosion of emerging tracks such as automotive and dimming provides historical opportunities for domestic liquid crystals. Of course, challenges still exist — in the high-end markets in Europe and the Americas, domestic liquid crystal brands still face obstacles such as insufficient customer awareness and certification system barriers; in segmented fields such as high-end automotive and ultra-large-size 8K panels, the technological gap with international giants still takes time to bridge. But with continuous R&D investment, constantly improving patent layout, and downstream-oriented collaborative innovation, domestic liquid crystals are steadily elevating their position in the global industrial landscape along the new growth curve where old and new momentum intersect.
Author | Gu Yue
Editor | Qiu Jiangyong
Art Editor | Ma Liya Supervisor | Lian Xiaodong