Energy-Efficient Era: LED Transparent Displays Pave New Horizons

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Tingting Zhao

On 02/20/2025

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Energy-Efficient Era: LED Transparent Displays Pave New Horizons

By Wang Xiaolei, Staff Reporter

Transparent displays, as the name suggests, are well-known for their transparency. In the LED display industry, transparent screens are used in a variety of indoor and outdoor applications. These screens are categorized into transparent displays, film-covered screens, optoelectronic glass screens, grid screens, mesh screens, and more. Due to their high transparency, energy efficiency, light weight, and aesthetic appeal, these products have become increasingly popular in the market.

LED transparent screens have undergone targeted improvements in their chip manufacturing process, lamp bead packaging, and control systems. Coupled with a hollow design, their transparency has been significantly enhanced. Among all transparent display technologies, LED transparent screens are the only ones that are not limited by size and can be produced at very large scales. When unlit, they have minimal impact on the building’s architectural design and natural lighting. When lit up, they can display text, images, and videos in vivid, lifelike colors, making them a widely used choice in modern architecture.

China leads the global market in LED transparent screen technology, with products being widely applied in commercial real estate, shopping malls, exhibition halls, airports, subway hubs, sightseeing elevators, atriums, brand chain stores, cultural and tourism industries, and stage performances. Many iconic buildings across the country have already installed transparent screens, including the Shanghai Center, Wuhan World City Optical Valley Walking Street, and Beijing Grand Canal Forest Park. These screens have become an important tool in beautifying urban spaces, especially in the development of night tourism economies.

Numerous Display Companies Focus on Transparent Displays, Adding Vitality to the Industry's Growth

Shanghai Hongguang (HDC Transparent Displays) was one of the early companies to propose the concept of transparent displays. As a high-tech enterprise specializing in providing comprehensive LED display system solutions, they have made significant contributions to the development of transparent screens. In fact, many companies are involved in the transparent display field. All six major listed companies have ventured into it, and many specialized indoor and outdoor transparent display companies, such as Leyard, Absen, Nationstar, Herno, DeliFu, CrystalClear, King Vision, TieGe, Oda, Aurora King, YinHan Displays, and Zhongrun Optoelectronics, are also involved. Even rental-focused companies like Guangxiang Technology have developed transparent display products.

After years of development, transparent displays have matured, with several classic projects emerging both domestically and internationally. For example, Asia’s largest outdoor 4K LED display was lit up this year. Covering nearly 5000㎡ of the Shenzhen Broadcasting Group’s building facade, this ultra-high-definition display offers stunning visual performance. Developed by Absen, the display integrates ultra-high-definition, naked-eye 3D, VR/AR, and other technologies, making it another iconic project in the industry.

A notable project is the Eco Business Complex in Shanghai’s Hongqiao Business Core Area, the only urban green island garden office complex, invested by LiBao Group. Herno used the P25 outdoor grid screen system to provide a comprehensive solution for the project’s weight-bearing load, high transparency for lighting, energy-saving environmental design, and natural heat dissipation. This design perfectly combined with the surrounding environment, enhancing the project’s overall aesthetic appeal and broad coverage, creating a comfortable viewing experience.

Shenzhen Huangting Plaza, the “diamond heart” of Shenzhen’s CBD, spans about 42,300 square meters with a total building area of approximately 104,000 square meters, making it a world-class shopping center. King Vision created creative media displays for the plaza using the high-definition P3.91 model, covering more than 300 square meters. King Vision’s transparent displays added a modern, technological flair to the L7 Attitude Bar, lighting up the night scene and becoming a striking feature of Huangting Plaza.

The Guiyang Tiange Wanda project, located at the intersection of Huaxi District and Gui’an New Area in Guiyang, covers a total construction area of 190,000 square meters. Aurora King crafted an impressive LED transparent display for the Tiange Wanda showroom, using Aurora King’s ATW curtain-wall series LED transparent screens, boasting over 90% transparency. The sleek, invisible installation enhanced the artistic ambiance of the showroom.

At the 4th Heilongjiang Province Tourism Development Conference, held on September 1, 2021, Zhongrun Optoelectronics’ 2000-square-meter mesh screen perfectly showcased the theme “Mirror Pulk Scenic Spot – Forest Sea Snowfield,” presenting a new, panoramic, immersive experience of Mudanjiang to the global audience. The use of mesh screens on stage not only created a unique display style but also highlighted the advantages of mesh screens in large-area displays.

According to incomplete statistics, there are now more than a hundred domestic LED transparent display companies. Major security companies such as Hikvision and Dahua have also entered this market, indicating that the transparent screen market is highly promising.

Market Prediction: Transparent Screens May Become Green Building Materials, with Market Demand Exceeding Trillions

According to LED Display World, it is predicted that by 2025, the domestic market for LED transparent screens will exceed 5 billion yuan. Due to the structural flexibility of LED transparent displays, they can be mounted on glass frames or combined with glass curtain walls to achieve effective advertising results. This trend is expected to lead to transparent screens becoming a new type of green building material, expanding their market application and significantly increasing market growth potential.

An industry insider disclosed that the annual addition of glass curtain walls is 45 million square meters. If 50% of this area installs transparent screens, based on the current price of optoelectronic glass at 20,000 yuan per square meter, this could represent a market scale of 450 billion yuan. In addition, the potential for upgrading and retrofitting 600-800 million square meters of existing market space presents even more growth opportunities. Notably, against the backdrop of global climate change, many countries have proposed energy-saving and emission-reduction plans in international climate conferences, with China being a key participant. The Chinese government has set a “dual carbon” target, emphasizing energy-saving and emission reduction as future trends. Transparent screens, with their hollow design and transparency ranging from 50% to 90%, save more than 30% of energy compared to traditional screens, with further improvement potential, making them perfectly aligned with global development needs. This makes them a highly promising solution for the future. Moreover, with increasingly strict approval processes for outdoor advertising, the light, thin, and transparent features of LED transparent screens give them a clear advantage over traditional outdoor screens. These advantages allow them to pass stricter approval processes and capture market share from outdoor advertisements that fail to meet approval standards.

Initially, transparent screens were mainly used indoors, in places such as jewelry stores, banks, bars, shopping malls, and airports. However, they have gradually moved outdoors, opening up higher and more beautiful possibilities. Indoor applications remain an important market segment, with many stores installing transparent screens in their windows to attract customer attention by displaying creative visuals. This has significantly increased foot traffic and directly boosted sales. King Vision, a leader in window display transparent screens, has created numerous successful cases in this area.

Today, the consumer market for LED transparent screens is maturing, accelerating their adoption. For example, at the closing ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the “Beijing 8 Minutes” performance amazed the world with 24 dynamic transparent “ice screens.” These screens showcased a beautiful vision of China’s new era, and their stunning performance led director Zhang Yimou to use them to their fullest potential. Since then, transparent screens have gained widespread popularity and have been used in numerous events. At the Beijing Winter Olympics opening and closing ceremonies earlier this year, the “Ice Cube” venue used transparent screens on all four sides, provided by Leyard, leaving a lasting impression on viewers. With such successful cases, it is clear that transparent screens are set to make a significant impact in various application fields around the world.