Taiwan-based MicroLED developer PlayNitride held its Q1 2026 earnings call, during which CEO Charles Li detailed the company's progress on its tandem (stacked) microLED chips and its full-color monolithic microdisplays for AI glasses, and reaffirmed PlayNitride's position as the only vertically-integrated microLED maker that has mastered epitaxy, chip manufacturing and mass transfer in production. The company also shared its latest financial results.
The main technology highlight was PlayNitride's next-generation tandem stacked microLED microdisplay. Li said the architecture, which has been in development for around two years, started shipping to customers for use in end products in 2026, and delivers a 50% to 80% improvement in light efficiency. Li said that PlayNitride is currently the only company that can stably mass-produce these increasingly complex microLED devices.
PlayNitride has progressed from its early 0.49-inch full-color monolithic panels to 0.18-inch and now 0.13-inch devices. The company says that numerous large customers are already engaged, with 2027 set as the target year to begin shipping to customer production lines, and predicted that by 2030 all AI/AR glasses will incorporate a display. PlayNitride is also developing full-color AR microdisplays in collaboration with ITRI.
On the financial side, PlayNitride did not disclose complete forecasts, but its monthly revenue figures now extend two months beyond the Q1 2026 results. In April 2026 the company posted around 50 million NTD ($1.6 million USD) in revenues, down 7.4% year-on-year and down 11.1% from March. In May 2026 revenues were again around 50 million NTD ($1.6 million USD), up 9.2% month-on-month and up 5.1% year-on-year - the first month of year-on-year revenue growth after a long stretch of steep declines.
Li characterized the current phase as low-level consolidation tied to the growing pains of ramping mass production, but said he personally feels the upward momentum is very strong, pointing to market forecasts of up to a 94.5% CAGR for the sector.
Li also addressed microLED-based optical communication and co-packaged optics (CPO). He acknowledged that two to three years ago he considered the idea unworkable, but said he now expects the ecosystem to mature within the next two to three years, as the very low energy-per-bit of microLED transmission becomes attractive for AI data centers facing rising power and cooling costs. PlayNitride is co-developing microLED-based optical interconnect solutions with Brillink.
PlayNitride developed the world's first complete microLED supply chain, from epiwafer production through chip processing and mass transfer. In December 2025 it announced it will acquire Lumiode for $2 million, and it is developing a wide range of displays including tiled large-area displays (PixeLED Matrix), wearable panels, microdisplays and transparent displays.
Disclosure: the author of this post holds shares in PlayNitride
