The COB INDEX is an aggregate price index for 0.9mm pixel pitch COB LED display modules, baseline-set to 100 on February 1, 2026. It tracks the direction and velocity of LED display pricing solely for that pixel pitch as manufacturing transitions from modular, field-serviceable systems toward integrated monolithic panels — and eventually toward chip-on-glass production at LCD fab scale.
The index will not display pricing. Pricing is gathered directly and indirectly and in many cases there is pricing from multiple sources for a single product. XRTICLE has focused on securing prices in a reproducible manner to avoid noise.
XRTICLE will not name the companies it tracks except in broader commentary about the COB market. What the COB INDEX shows is where the market is relative to where it started, expressed across three sub-indices and one aggregate corrective basket. That a company is mentioned in an article is not indicative that the company is being used in the COB INDEX.
The Four Baskets
Fabs
Fabs are the companies that manufacture COB modules in-house — vertically integrated operations that bond LED dies directly to printed circuit boards under protective coatings. This category includes facilities such as BOE, vMTC, and HCP. These companies secure LED materials, drivers, and substrates, run pick-and-place lines, conduct module binning and quality testing, and ship tested modules or finished LED panels.
Fabs represent the upstream floor of the market and set the economic conditions for every downstream transaction. They are also where the structural tension in the COB market is most visible: a COB module assembly facility costs in the range of millions of dollars to establish, which has enabled a relatively distributed manufacturing base. But the trajectory of display manufacturing — larger substrates, higher yields, lower per-unit cost — points toward consolidation that has already defined LCD and OLED. Whether fab-level COB manufacturing stays distributed or follows that consolidation path is precisely what the Fabs basket is positioned to document.
Price movements in the Fabs basket presage shifts in the B to B and B to C baskets by approximately three to six months as inventory cycles through the supply chain. This lag is one of the more practically useful signals the index produces.
Business to Business (B to B)
B to B companies integrate COB modules purchased from fabs and sell complete display systems to rental and staging companies, corporate AV integrators, broadcast and production facilities, and enterprise end users. The segment spans from boutique technical specialists — companies built around engineering depth and custom configuration — to high-volume distribution operations where margin is captured through scale and logistics efficiency rather than technical differentiation.
B to B pricing reflects fab cost plus the value the market assigns to integration: cabinet engineering, rigging and mounting hardware, control system selection and integration, factory calibration, warranty terms, and service infrastructure. The spread between the Fabs basket and the B to B basket is one of the more informative numbers the index produces — it indicates what buyers are currently willing to pay for integration as a distinct service, and how that premium is compressing or expanding over time as the technology matures.
Business to Consumer (B to C)
B to C companies sell COB-based display products through major consumer and professional electronics retail channels — B&H Photo, Best Buy, and equivalent distributors. These prices are fully public, carry no volume commitment, and require no established trade relationship. B to C pricing is the most visible and the least representative of actual transaction economics in the professional market, but it serves a specific function in the index: it establishes the public ceiling, the price a buyer pays when they arrive with no leverage and no prior relationship. This price is particularly interesting when it is coming from companies that are not legacy consumer electronics businesses.
The B to C basket also reflects how manufacturers are thinking about market development. A company investing in retail distribution is making a bet on demand-side accessibility — that display technology has reached a price point and form factor where it belongs in a retail channel. LED panels have been present in the commodity online marketplace for some time, but the all-in-one market for 0.9mm pixel pitch displays is a specific and recent development. Whether that market is growing or contracting is a secondary signal the basket provides.
Global
The Global basket is the index's structural corrective — a shock absorber designed to prevent regional pricing distortions from introducing noise into the composite number. It tracks pricing across geographic markets not adequately represented by the three primary baskets alone, capturing data points from markets where currency movements, logistics differentials, tariff structures, import regulations, or local competitive dynamics create meaningful divergence from the primary East Asian, European, and North American pricing picture.
The Global basket does not appear as a standalone sub-index. It is used exclusively in the composite COB INDEX calculation and will not be displayed separately. Its function is not to represent a market segment but to maintain index integrity across reporting periods — when, for example, a significant currency shift or a regional supply disruption would otherwise cause the composite to move in a way that misrepresents the underlying pricing trend.
Index Construction
The composite COB INDEX is calculated from the top three prices within each basket component. A minimum of five tracked companies must be active in each primary basket — Fabs, B to B, and B to C — at any time for the index to publish. If a basket falls below five active tracked companies, the index enters a disclosed data-quality warning state rather than publishing on reduced inputs.
The index uses a price-weighted methodology. Currency normalization uses monthly average exchange rates with primary weighting across East Asian markets, North America, and the European Union, reflecting the actual structure of global COB supply and demand. Basket composition is updated quarterly.
No raw pricing data appears in any public-facing output. COB company names do not appear in index commentary, analysis, or visualization. Mentions of companies within XRTICLE do not mean those companies are included in the index.
Why 0.9mm Pixel Pitch
The 0.9mm pixel pitch is the current reference product for the COB INDEX. It is a tipping point product. Fine enough to demonstrate COB technology's density advantage over SMD-based LED displays, standardized enough across manufacturers to enable direct comparison across baskets, and priced at a point that captures both fab economics and the integration margin that sits above them. Every index value, every basket reading, and every data point collected for the COB INDEX is anchored to 0.9mm pixel pitch modules.
What It Is Tracking
LED display pixel cost has declined from roughly one dollar to under one cent over two decades. The COB INDEX is not predicting whether that decline continues — it is documenting it as it happens.
The structural question the index is positioned to observe is whether COB manufacturing remains distributed across dozens of regional module fabs, or consolidates toward the large-glass economics that have defined LCD and OLED. At a panel discussion at Display Week 2025, the Chief Technology Officers of AUO and BOE were direct about their thesis: whoever achieves high yields on the largest substrate wins. Some legacy display industry entities have argued that COB offers a path to distributed localized manufacturing, with small factories serving regional markets and sustaining accessible production. The index will reflect which thesis the market validates, without editorializing about which outcome is preferable — though XRTICLE's interest in that question is not neutral.
Basket composition, tracked company lists, and methodology updates are maintained separately and published quarterly. Access to supporting documentation is available upon request.