Omdia just put out a report (dated March 10 UK time) predicting that shipments of polarizer-less - or Pol-less - OLED panels will grow at 22.7% per year on average from 2026 to 2032, hitting about 244 million units by the end.
Basically, skipping the polarizer layer is one of the hotter trends in OLED right now. The standout method seems to be COE (color filter on encapsulation), which looks like it's becoming a real alternative to the usual polarizer. There's also simpler stuff like SPL that could work well for cheaper OLED products.
Normally, OLED screens have a circular polarizer to kill reflections from outside light and make blacks look deeper in bright rooms. But that layer eats up roughly half the light the panel puts out, so you end up needing more power for the same brightness, and it wears out the organic stuff faster.
Dropping the polarizer (especially with COE) lets more light get through, so panels can be thinner, colors pop more, designs get more flexible, and some versions even add better privacy screening.
It's already pretty common in foldables - over half the foldable market uses it today - and people expect that share to keep climbing fast across more devices in the next few years.
Overall, it looks like the industry sees this as a solid way to make OLEDs perform better without jacking up costs too much in a super competitive market.
