Mini-LED laptop panels to lose 75% of shipments by 2027, Counterpoint says
Counterpoint Research expects mini-LED notebook panel shipments to fall 38% in 2026 and a further 60% in 2027, leaving roughly a quarter of 2025 volume, while OLED notebook panels grow 50% and then 24%. The analysts pin the collapse on Apple moving the MacBook Pro off the mini-LED backlight it has used since 2021. The irony is that the 14-inch MacBook Pro Apple introduced on 27 October still lists the same 1,600-nit, 1,000,000:1 Liquid Retina XDR panel.
Reported, not announced. The details below come from press reports rather than a manufacturer announcement.
The details
- Counterpoint Research expects shipments of mini-LED notebook panels to fall 38% in 2026 and a further 60% in 2027, leaving roughly a quarter of 2025 volume by 2027 — a cumulative decline of about 75% — according to a forecast reported by Notebookcheck on 26 October 2026.
- Over the same two years Counterpoint forecasts OLED notebook panel shipments to grow 50% in 2026 and another 24% in 2027, the mirror image of the mini-LED fall.
- Through 2030 Counterpoint projects OLED notebook panel shipments growing 26% a year while OLED panel revenue grows 35% a year, implying that average selling prices rise rather than fall over the period.
- Total notebook display shipments are forecast to decline 3% in 2026, which Counterpoint attributes partly to expensive memory raising bill-of-materials costs; OLED and mini-LED together are still up 11% in 2026, carried entirely by OLED.
- Counterpoint explicitly names the expected switch to OLED in the next MacBook Pro generation as a driver of the mini-LED decline, noting that the MacBook Pro has used mini-LED since 2021 and that Apple is the most prominent notebook customer of mini-LED panel makers.
- On the OLED side Counterpoint credits tandem OLED gains in brightness, efficiency and lifespan, plus LG Display's FLiPP and Visionox's ViP manufacturing processes, more efficient blue emitters and larger Gen 8.7 production lines, for raising yields and cutting costs.
- The OLED MacBook Pro the forecast hinges on had not arrived when it was published: Apple introduced a new 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M6 chip on 27 October 2026 at $1,999 in the US, with pre-orders from 28 October and availability from 6 November, and Apple's own tech specs still list a Liquid Retina XDR display with 1,600 nits peak HDR brightness, up to 1,000 nits sustained, a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and ProMotion up to 120Hz — the same figures as the outgoing models, with Apple naming no panel technology either way.
- Bloomberg has reported that the redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with an OLED touchscreen and an iPhone-style Dynamic Island in place of the notch would start at about $2,899 and $3,399 respectively, roughly $400 above the current M5 Pro and M5 Max models, which Apple is said to keep on sale as the cheaper option.
- The panel forecast lands in a shrinking market: Counterpoint said on 22 October 2026 that global PC shipments fell 21% year on year to 57 million units in Q3 2026, with Q4 2026 expected to drop 27% and 2027 volumes broadly flat, as elevated memory and component costs push prices up.
- Mini-LED's problems are not uniform across brands — Notebookcheck rates the mini-LED panel in the MacBook Pro 14 (M5) as still competitive, while its review of Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra found the screen reaches 2,000 nits but lacks local dimming and responds slowly; Microsoft's own product page lists that 15-inch 120Hz touchscreen at 2,000 nits peak HDR measured over a 10% window, priced at $2,599.99.