Universal Display Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Universal Display EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.39
• Consensus EPS: $1.28
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.11
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.22

Universal Display Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $172.93 million
• Expected Revenue: $173.35 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$423.00 thousand
• YoY Revenue Growth: +6.50%

Universal Display Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/19/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 19, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Universal Display (NASDAQ:OLED) (NASDAQ: OLED) develops and commercializes organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technologies and materials. The company’s business is centered on high-efficiency phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) technology, which is designed to improve the performance and energy efficiency of OLED displays and lighting products.

Universal Display supplies OLED emitter materials and other related products to manufacturers and provides technology licenses, technical assistance and support under agreements covering its intellectual property. Its technologies are used in applications such as smartphones, televisions, tablets, automotive displays and other electronic products. The company also conducts research and development in areas including next-generation OLED materials, device structures and manufacturing processes.

Headquartered in Ewing, New Jersey, Universal Display serves a global customer base through relationships with display manufacturers and other industry participants, particularly across Asia, Europe and North America. The company was established to commercialize OLED technology and has built a substantial portfolio of patents and research capabilities through collaborations with academic institutions, including Princeton University. Steven V. Abramson serves as president and chief executive officer.

Universal Display Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Universal Display reported record 2025 revenue of $651 million, operating income of $249 million, net income of $242 million ($5.08 per diluted share), and ended the year with $955 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments.
• Negative Sentiment: 2026 guidance calls for revenue of $650–$700 million (midpoint ~4% growth) with expected gross margins of 74%–76% and operating margins of 34%–37%, citing higher raw material costs as a headwind.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management highlighted progress and multi-customer engagement on phosphorescent blue, which could boost panel energy efficiency up to 25%, but blue-related development revenue remains small (~$4.3M in 2025) and commercialization timing is uncertain.
• Positive Sentiment: The company expects a multi-year demand runway as new capacity comes online (notably first mass production from Gen 8.6 fabs at Samsung Display and BOE in 2026) and Omdia forecasts strong growth in IT, automotive, and foldable OLED shipments through 2030.
• Positive Sentiment: Universal Display continued returning capital to shareholders—repurchasing ~454,000 shares for $53 million recently and increasing the quarterly cash dividend to $0.50 per share—totaling ~ $139 million returned over the last 12 months.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Universal Display Corporation's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. My name is Sherry, and I will be your conference moderator for today's call. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Darice Liu, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

[Darice Liu, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Universal Display]

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Universal Display's fourth quarter earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Steve Abramson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Millard, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Before Steve begins, let me remind you, today's call is a property of Universal Display. Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of any portion of this call in any form without the express written consent of Universal Display is strictly prohibited. Further, this call is being webcast live and will be made available for a period of time on Universal Display's website. This call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of the live webcast of this call, February 19th, 2026. During this call, we may make forward-looking statements based on current expectations.

[Darice Liu, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Universal Display]

These statements are subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the company's periodic reports filed with the SEC and should be referenced by anyone considering making any investments in the company's securities. Universal Display disclaims any obligation to update any of these statements. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Steve Abramson.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

Thanks, Darice, and welcome to everyone on today's call. We are pleased to report record 2025 revenue of $651 million. Operating income was $249 million, and net income was $242 million, or $5.08 per diluted share. These results reflect strong execution across the business and the continued expansion of OLED adoption throughout the industry. Brian will share additional financial details shortly. In 2025, we continued to drive value as OLEDs proliferated across the consumer electronics landscape, including wearables, smartphones, tablets, laptops, monitors, and TVs. At the same time, we remained focused on the long term. We expanded our R&D efforts, strengthened our intellectual property framework, broadened our global infrastructure, and deepened engagement with customers across the OLED ecosystem.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

These investments are designed to support the next phase of growth for both the OLED industry and for us. As we look to 2026 and beyond, it's worth reflecting on how the OLED industry has evolved and how Universal Display has helped shape that evolution. For decades, the industry was largely centered around a single dominant architecture, single-stack OLEDs. Universal Display has played a defining role in this technology's advancement. Our phosphorescent materials unlock higher efficiency, longer lifetime, and better performance, helping to enable OLEDs to scale into mass-market products and transform display technology worldwide. Today, the OLED industry is entering a new phase marked by broader applications, higher performance expectations, and a more diverse set of device architectures. We remain at the forefront of this evolution.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

Our materials and technologies continue to play a central role in OLED innovation, supporting scale and helping define the performance benchmarks that will shape the industry's next chapter. While single-stack OLED is the dominant commercial architecture today, the roadmap is becoming increasingly multidimensional. Performance targets continue to rise, and energy efficiency matters more than ever. New applications, from foldable devices to automotive and IT displays, introduce new requirements. As a result, multiple device architectures are now being explored and deployed across the industry, including tandem OLED structures, phosphor sensitized fluorescence or PSF-based approaches, and other emerging hybrid architectures. Across all these architectures, one element is foundational: the phosphorescent material. In PSF and other hybrid architectures, our phosphorescent materials are designed to work alongside fluorescent emitters within the OLED stack. This design helps balance efficiency, lifetime, and color performance while giving manufacturers greater flexibility in meeting application-specific requirements.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

As OLED structures grow more complex and efficiency demands intensify, our full OLED materials, along with our long-term technology leadership and deep know-how, become increasingly central to enabling performance, scalability, and the next wave of OLED innovation. That leadership is grounded in decades of deep materials and device-level expertise, as well as a long history of exploring architectural concepts at the leading edge of technology. Early research included SOLED, our stacked OLED concept, as well as PSF-based architectures, which expanded our technical foundation. More recently, we completed the acquisition of intellectual property assets from Merck KGaA that included PSF and related OLED technologies. Collectively, these efforts broaden our technology platform and expand the architectural design space within our portfolio as OLED design continues to evolve.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

At the core of our company is an R&D platform that has been built, refined, and scaled over decades, and today, that platform is more active and more critical than ever. Across red, green, and blue emissive layer materials, our pipeline is exceptionally robust... reflecting the expanding OLED industry roadmap. As applications proliferate and architectures diversify, the performance envelope continues to be pushed forward. Different form factors, different lifetime and efficiency targets all require continuous materials and device innovation. One of the most important evolutions in our R&D platforms is our increased investment in our in-house materials discovery, device modeling, and characterization capabilities, anchored by a deeply experienced R&D team. This hands-on foundation remains the engine of our innovation, whether advancing next-generation reds and greens or moving blue along the path to commercialization. In concert, AI and machine learning tools are emerging as powerful accelerators for our research engine.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

By combining AI-driven insights with our proprietary data, device expertise, and decades of OLED know-how, we can explore broader design spaces more efficiently, shorten development cycles, and make better, faster, smarter decisions about where to focus our efforts. Together, these capabilities strengthen our platform to support multiple architectures, customer roadmaps, and end markets, while continuing to push the boundaries of performance. One area where this platform approach is gaining particular traction is blue. With strong and growing interest in our phosphorescent blue, we are deeply engaged with multiple customers and collaborating across the industry to support multiple architectural and strategic paths. Our confidence in blue remains unwavering. Breakthroughs of this magnitude are rarely linear. Once adopted, we believe our phosphorescent blue can enable up to a 25% improvement in OLED panel energy efficiency, delivering a meaningful step-change benefit for customers, consumers, and the industry.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, the opportunities for OLED continue to broaden. The market is evolving from being primarily mobile and TV-centric to more diversified landscape, with IT applications emerging as one of the strongest drivers of near and midterm growth. According to Omdia Market Research, global OLED shipments are projected to surpass 1.4 billion units by 2030, driven in part by accelerating adoption across tablets, notebooks, and monitors. OLED smartphone shipments are expected to grow from 810 million units in 2025 to 967 million units by 2030, while OLED IT shipments are forecasted to more than triple, from 27 million to 92 million units over that same period. In automotive, OLED is emerging as a strategic enabler of both design freedom and brand positioning.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

Adoption is gaining momentum along luxury OEMs and Chinese new energy vehicle manufacturers, as displays play a growing role in shaping the in-vehicle experience. Omdia projects automotive OLED shipments will increase from 3 million in 2025 to 14 million units by 2030. At the same time, foldables are poised for renewed momentum as leading OEMs prepare to introduce a new wave of products. OLED-enabled form factor innovation is becoming a powerful catalyst for differentiation, expanding user experience, and driving architectural advancements across multiple product categories. Market forecasts indicate that 2026 marks the beginning of a broader inflection point, with foldable OLED unit volumes expected to increase more than 250%, from 19 million units in 2025 to 71 million units by 2030. From a manufacturing perspective, the OLED industry has entered into a new multi-year phase of capacity expansion.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

Between year-end 2023 and year-end 2025, installed OLED capacity, measured in square meters, increased by approximately 10%. Looking ahead, we expect an additional 10% increase in installed capacity between the end of 2025 and the end of 2027, driven primarily by the introduction of Gen 8.6 capacity to support expanding IT and automotive OLED adoption. Importantly, 2026 marks a significant industry milestone, with the world's first Gen 8.6 OLED facilities, Samsung Display in Korea and BOE in China, entering mass production. As utilization tightens and new applications scale, we anticipate additional OLED fab investment announcements, further expanding industry capacity and reinforcing the long-term growth trajectory of OLEDs. On that note, let me turn the call over to Brian.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Thank you, Steve. 2025 ended on a strong note, with record fourth quarter and annual revenues that were in line with our expectations from November. For the year, our revenue was $651 million. Material sales were $353 million, royalty and license revenues were $275 million, and Adesis revenues were $23 million. Our 2025 revenues included a Cumulative Catch-Up Adjustment of $14 million, compared to $11 million in 2024. Total gross margin for 2025 was 76%, compared to 77% in 2024. Operating expenses for 2025 were $248 million, compared to $260 million in 2024. Operating income for 2025 was $249 million, translating to an operating margin of 38%.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

This compares to $239 million or a 37% operating margin in 2024. Net income for 2025 was $242 million, or $5.08 per diluted share.... compared to $222 million, or $4.65 per diluted share in 2024. We ended the year with $955 million in cash, cash equivalents, and investments. Turning now to our fourth quarter results. Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2025 was $173 million, up 7% from $162 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Fourth quarter 2025 results included a cumulative catch-up adjustment of $10 million, compared to $5 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Material sales were $96 million, compared to $93 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Green emitter sales, which include our yellow-green emitters, were $74 million, compared to $67 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Red emitter sales were $21 million, compared to $25 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. As we've discussed in the past, material buying patterns can vary quarter to quarter. Royalty and license fees in the fourth quarter were $73 million, compared to $64 million in the prior year period. Adesis revenue for the fourth quarter of 2025 was $4.8 million, compared to $4.6 million in the same period in 2024. Cost of sales in the fourth quarter was $41 million, resulting in a gross margin of 76%.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

This compares to $37 million and a gross margin of 77% in the fourth quarter of 2024. Operating expenses, excluding cost of sales, were $64 million in the fourth quarter, compared to $72 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Operating income for the fourth quarter of 2025 was $67 million, translating to an operating margin of 39%. This compares to the prior year period of $52 million and an operating margin of 32%. The fourth quarter 2025 income tax rate was 13.5%. Net income for the fourth quarter was $66 million, or $1.39 per diluted share. This compares to the fourth quarter of 2024's $46 million or $0.96 per diluted share. Now turning to our 2026 outlook.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

We expect our 2026 revenues will be in the range of $650 million-$700 million. We estimate that our ratio of materials to royalty and licensing revenues will be in the ballpark of 1.3 to 1. Total gross margins are expected to be approximately in the range of 74%-76% as a result of higher raw material pricing. R&D and SG&A expenses are both expected to grow in the mid- to high-single-digit percentage year-over-year, as we continue to invest in our technology and R&D engine. 2026 operating margins are expected to be in the range of 34%-37%. We expect the effective tax rate for 2026 to be approximately 19%. And lastly, we continue to prioritize returning capital to our shareholders.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

During the fourth quarter and thus far in Q1, we repurchased approximately 454,000 shares of common stock for $53 million. When combined with our dividends, this represents a total capital return to shareholders of approximately $139 million over the last 12 months. Additionally, our board of directors has approved an increase to our quarterly cash dividend. A dividend payment of $0.50 per share will be paid on March 31st, 2026, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 17th, 2026. The dividend increase reflects the confidence in our robust future growth opportunities, expect to continue positive cash flow generation, and commitment to return capital to our shareholders.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

As we enter the new year, we are highly profitable, operationally agile, and well-positioned for continued growth, supported by a strong balance sheet that enables ongoing investment in our people, infrastructure, and innovation. With that, I'll turn the call back to Steve.

[Steve Abramson, President and CEO at Universal Display]

Thanks, Brian. What lies ahead for OLED is both expansive and compelling. Product roadmaps are broadening, new capacity is coming online, and adoption continues to extend well across the consumer electronics landscape. With decades of leadership in phosphorescent materials and OLED innovation, we are supporting our customers as they bring to market the next generation of OLED products and reinforcing the industry's long-term growth trajectory. I would like to thank each of our employees for their drive, desire, dedication, and heart in elevating and shaping Universal Display's accomplishments and advancements. We are committed to being a leader in the OLED ecosystem, achieving superior long-term growth, and delivering cutting-edge technologies and materials for the industry, for our customers, and for our shareholders. With that, operator, let's start the Q&A.

[Operator]

Thank you, Mr. Abramson. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question is from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

[Brian Lee, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Hey, everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess just bigger picture, you know, this is the outlook quarter. You know, you're giving us the views here for 2026. I know you're still quite constructive on the outlook for blue without quantifying it, but can you kind of give us a sense, you know, at the start of the year, you know, where the bottlenecks to blue are? And then kind of the visibility to updates on progress there moving through 2026?

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Sure. Hi, Brian. On blue, as Steve said in his remarks, I mean, we continue to feel like we're very much on the right path. We've been working with multiple customers now for a while on their development efforts in terms of getting our phosphorescent blue material into a commercial product for consumers. We continue to feel like we're on the right path there. Steve also mentioned the various architectural approaches that our customers are pursuing for blue, which I think is even, you know, greater evidence of the fact that, you know, this material is very beneficial for them and for the industry, and getting it designed in, you know, in various approaches is very critical for them.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

And so in terms of the path forward, we continue to support them, but it's really, you know, much of the progress here forward is in the customer's hands in terms of getting it into a commercial device for the market, while our work continues in terms of developing and inventing new materials that help open more doors for them as they go through that process of commercializing products with blue. So, the work continues, but the path that we're on and the enthusiasm we have for the product continues to be very strong.

[Brian Lee, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Fair enough. And then I guess just a follow-up on blue. I mean, it sounds like, you know, visibility is still somewhat limited, even though there's activity across multiple customers. But if we just look at kind of the developmental revenues, since you started first breaking them out in 2023, you know, they're kind of down, right? They've just been hanging around $4 million-$5 million a year, and it was actually down in 2025 versus 2024. I think at one point in time, you kind of directly had said you expect blue revenue to grow.

[Brian Lee, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Is there any, I guess, visibility this year as to kind of blue from a sampling and activity perspective, where you would expect that number to grow and maybe be a bit of a leading indicator to kind of what what might be the commercialization pathway over the next years?

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah, I think certainly the blue revenue figure that's reported. It was as you said, $800,000 for Q4 and $4.3 million for the full year of 2025. It's an interesting data point, but you know, I think that there's evidence we can clearly see that a little bit of material can go a very long way in the development efforts. And so I don't think it's necessarily, you know, the only or the primary way that progress can be measured. And in terms of what we expect this year for blue revenues, it's still gonna be developmental in nature. So I think modeling, you know, kind of around the zone that we've been for the last few years is a reasonable place to go.

[Brian Lee, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Okay, great. Maybe just a couple modeling ones, then I'll pass it on. Just big picture thoughts on, you know, inventory trends across key geos, you know, especially China and maybe seasonality expectations for this year, given you had a little bit of lumpiness last year. Then just from a modeling perspective, it did seem like you had the big increase in cumulative catch-up payments in Q4, which you outlined. It was up year-on-year. Is there anything to read into that? I mean, it's like the second straight year where you've had double-digit millions of revenue catch up at the end of the year, and the reasoning being out, your forecasts are being taken down.

[Brian Lee, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Maybe just, you know, what the implications are of, you know, demand kind of coming in and how we should expect that to trend going forward.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah. So on your first point on inventory in China specifically, I mean, I think we've at this point, we kind of feel like most of that tariff buying has kind of worked its way through, as we exit 2025. And on seasonality for this year, we are expecting more of a return to our historical pattern, which is the second half being stronger than the first half. As you know, last year, 2025 was a bit of an anomaly with the tariff-related buying that happened in the first half by our Chinese customers. And, in terms of the forecasts and, you know, the cumulative catch-up revenue, we rely on third-party data, you know, from market research firms that track the display industry for those out year estimates that we use in our revenue process.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

You know, recently, over the last, you know, quarter or so, there have been some revisions to those forecasts, and that's what drove the Cumulative Catch-Up in the fourth quarter. So we go through that process on a quarterly basis. Sometimes it's very minimal, sometimes it swings the other direction. But as we closed out 2025, there was, you know, a Cumulative Catch-Up that did result in additional revenue.

[Brian Lee, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Okay. Thanks a lot. I'll pass it on.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question is from James Ricchiuti with Needham & Company. Please proceed. James, please check and see if your phone is muted.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Sorry about that. Good afternoon. I wanted to ask about the capacity adds, particularly the new Gen 8.6 launch. What I'm wondering is, you know, how soon would you anticipate seeing benefits from these starts? And maybe looking at max capacity builds, is this something that you would anticipate in as early as Q2? And is that, you know, also embedded in your thinking around 2026 guides as we think about the second half being back-weighted? I assume that also has something to do with some of the new product launches, but I wonder if you could just comment on the capacity situation. Thank you.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah. Thanks, Jim. On the capacity adds, certainly, you know, these new fabs from both Samsung and BOE coming online this year are adding, you know, significant new capacity for the IT market. And Samsung's fab is not expected to come online till sometime in Q2, and BOE's, you know, shortly thereafter. So we really aren't gonna get, you know, a full year of operations from out of those two fabs. But they are incorporated in our overall guidance for the year, and, you know, to some degree, are weighing on that second half orientation. But there's also, as you know, a heavy product cycle orientation in the second half that also drives the reason for the revenue being set more second half-weighted.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. I wanted to ask about the competitive environment in China from local players. And, you know, just looking at some of the revenue concentration with your large customers, it looks like revenues with one of your large customers in China has declined year-over-year for the last two quarters. And, yeah, I'm just wondering, how do you view their market activity, some of these new local players, maybe even from a longer term perspective?

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah, there certainly has been an increased competitive environment over the last few years, especially in China. You know, China remains a, a critical market and a growing market for us and for the industry, and we're continuing to support our customers in China and work with them on all their development needs. Also, as a company, we are making additional investment in the Chinese market. We've added additional folks to our team there. We're in the process of opening a new lab in the, in China as well. So making sure that all the local support that we have on the ground is, you know, at the right level for, for what we need to, to support our customers there. But certainly there is a competitive environment.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

But when you look at our materials, the quality of our materials, the patent position that we have with more than 7,000 patents that are very global in nature, we continue to believe that, you know, we'll have the dominant position in the OLED materials market going forward.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Maybe one final quick one. Is there any update that you can provide on the contract talks with LG?

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yes. So we, we've been working with LG, as you know, for more than two decades at this point. Continue to have a very strong relationship with them, and their contract did expire at the end of last year. We're working through the details of a new contract with them, so, nothing to announce today, but things are, you know, progressing as we'd expect there, and we have no concerns about getting a new deal put in place.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Thank you.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Mehdi Hosseini with SIG. Please proceed.

[Mehdi Hosseini, Senior Equity Research Analyst at SIG]

Yes, sir. Thanks for taking my question. Just want to go back to your calendar 2026 revenue guide, the midpoint implying 4% year-over-year growth. Want to better understand the underlying assumption. Are you looking at the smartphone units, notebook and TV and rolling up, or are you looking at the Gen 8 and just the panel production? And the reason I bring this up is we're all struggling to figure out how higher cost of component is adversely impacting end market demand. And essentially, I want to know if there is some conservatism from that or from that variable dialed into your guide. And I have a follow-up.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah. Hi, Mehdi. In the guidance at the midpoint and, you know, overall really is in line with the industry growth that's projected in terms of area. So, that mid-single digit, you know, roughly the midpoint of our guidance and the mid-single digit growth aligns very closely with the square area growth that's projected for the OLED market this year, based on the firms that publish estimates for that. And to your point, you know, this year's and to your question on what we're taking into account, we're taking into account everything across smartphones, IT, TVs, and other markets. So it's a, you know, total view of all the various end markets where our material ends up.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

On the potential downsides, as you said, you know, there are, you know, concerns about memory pricing and availability this year that are factoring in on the downside. There's also, on the upside, the opportunity for, you know, stronger IT demand as well as foldable demand that's coming out this year. So, that's... Those are the various factors that we weighed in coming up with the $650-$700 range, but the midpoint is very closely aligned with the area growth that's projected for the industry this year.

[Mehdi Hosseini, Senior Equity Research Analyst at SIG]

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for detail. Then the follow-up has to do with, royalty and, and how should we model this for 2026 as you renegotiate your contract with LG? Should we just make some assumption from the past couple of years and use the ratio, or would there be a greater variability, impacting the royalties from that particular customer?

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah, we're expecting overall, across our total business, for the ratio of materials to licensing this year to be around 1.3 to one. So, you know, that's the best way to model it.

[Mehdi Hosseini, Senior Equity Research Analyst at SIG]

Okay. Thank you.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Thanks.

[Operator]

As a reminder, it is star one on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask a question. Our next question is from Martin Yang with Oppenheimer and Company. Please proceed.

[Martin Yang, Executive Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer and Company]

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I have a follow-up to the catch-up, cumulative catch-up, figure in Q4. Is there any more context you can give us on where the adjustment is happening? Is there relating to certain product categories or certain customers? Thank you.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Hey, Martin. So, the cumulative catch-up was across, you know, all of our customers, so there's some that are, you know, positive, some that are negative, but they netted out to that, that $10 million cumulative catch-up figure in the quarter. And it's not market, you know, end market specific, it's more of a total number, because the way that we recognize revenue is based on our total business with each of our customers. And we are recognizing an average ASP over those contract terms, so, wasn't specific to any particular end market or, or application.

[Martin Yang, Executive Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer and Company]

Got it. Just a quick follow-up on that. So can you confirm that some customers, the figures were adjusted up and some were down, so it's not directionally in the same direction?

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah. To varying degrees, yes. Each quarter, we typically see, you know, some going one way and some going the other, as we have to go through that re-estimation process. It's a combination of, you know, for the next 12 months, we use our own internal forecasting processes, and then for the later periods, we do rely on that third-party data. Typically each quarter, the number we report, which is a net number, within that, there's, you know, certain customers that are moving one direction and certain another.

[Martin Yang, Executive Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer and Company]

Got it. And then, last question on the guidance. So you talked about a average growth according to third-party research and a midpoint. Do you also incorporate your own view regarding how end market such as smartphone shipments will trend this year? Or is this the average growth as the sole anchor for the midpoint of the guidance?

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah. So, the foundation of our guidance is also really our customer forecast, right? Meeting with our customers, understanding what they're hearing from the OEMs in terms of demand for the year across all the various, you know, end markets that they supply. So we certainly are within our range in terms of the customer forecast and where that rolls up. The midpoint of our guidance also happens to align closely with the data that many of the industry firms are publishing for what they project this year. And then looking beyond 2026, you know, into the next few years, we do expect the growth rate to increase, you know, significantly off of what's projected this year.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

2026 does have, you know, more mid-single-digit growth associated with it, based on what we're hearing from our customers, as well as what those market research firms are projecting.

[Martin Yang, Executive Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer and Company]

Got it. That's it for me. Thank you, Brian.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question is a follow-up from James Ricchiuti with Needham & Company. Please proceed.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Brian, I just wanted to go back to the comment you made about gross margins. I think you talked about higher raw material costs, and I was wondering if you could elaborate on what you're seeing, specifically, what materials?

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah. So we have certain raw materials. Iridium is one that is a key raw material for many of our products, and it has fluctuated in price over the last few years, and we do expect to sell products this year that have some higher cost iridium in them, as well as other raw materials. As our materials continue to get more complex and increase their performance characteristics, there's also, you know, a different quantity of raw materials required, as well as type of raw materials that also can drive an increase in cost. So that's, you know, having some impact on us that caused us to revise the gross margins to be 74%-76% as the guide for this year.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

If you were to just quantify that versus, you know, what, maybe what we saw this past year, how much of a headwind is it? Is it... I'm not sure if it's entirely the increase that you're seeing in some of these the material costs or if there's something else there.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Yeah. On the pricing side, we really aren't expecting any, you know, significant adjustments in pricing in 2026. It really is coming down to, you know, raw materials being a key driver of the decrease, you know, slight decrease off of where we were in 2025.

[James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company]

Okay. Thank you.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Thanks, Jim.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Woo Jin Ho with Bloomberg Intelligence. Please proceed.

[Woo Jin Ho, Senior Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence]

Great, and thank you for taking my question. Just another follow-up on the gross margin. Look, at the end of the day, gross margin has been sliding from the 80s all the way to the mid-70s with the latest guidance. I'm just curious if there's anything else outside of the raw material cost. Curious how if you're able to pass through some of the good development work that you've done to at least stabilize gross margins going forward from here.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Hi, Woo Jin. Yeah, so part of what's, you know, caused gross margin over the last year to, to decrease modestly is volume pricing. So as the industry has grown and matured, our volumes have increased significantly over the last, you know, number of years, and therefore, there has been, you know, a slight decrease in ASP, just as volume and scale has, has increased in the industry and, and therefore, in our business as well. In terms of costs and, you know, conversations about those with customers, certainly when we sit down with our customers to talk about new long-term agreements, our cost structure and changes in it since we, you know, last negotiated a deal are, are certainly front and center as part of those conversations and factor into, you know, the ultimate outcome that we, that we reach with our customers.

[Woo Jin Ho, Senior Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence]

Great. Thank you, Brian.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Thanks, Woo Jin.

[Operator]

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Brian Millard for any additional closing remarks.

[Brian Millard, CFO at Universal Display]

Thanks very much for your time today. We appreciate your interest and support.

[Operator]

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Brian Millard, CFO
• Darice Liu, Senior Director of Investor Relations
• Steve Abramson, President and CEO

Analysts

• Brian Lee, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• James Ricchiuti, Senior Analyst at Needham & Company
• Martin Yang, Executive Director and Senior Analyst at Oppenheimer and Company
• Mehdi Hosseini, Senior Equity Research Analyst at SIG
• Woo Jin Ho, Senior Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence