OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 14

A couple of weeks ago Xiaomi started shipping its latest OLED TV, the Mi TV 6 OLED last month in China, for 5,699 Yuan (around $880). According to the company, it is enjoying very high demand for its new TV.

Xiaomi says that it has sold over 10,000 OLED TVs in 15 days - which is a new industry record. The company estimates that in these two weeks its share of the China OLED TV market is about 50%.

According to a report from Korea, LG Electronics decided to launch its 42-inch OLED TV in 2022. The company first planned to launch it in the second half of 2021. The TV/monitor will target gamers, with support advanced video processing at 120Hz and a 4K resolution.

The reports says that LG decided to do this due to marketing considerations - while LG Display still plans to start production of the 42-inch panels before the end of the year.

DSCC updated its AMOLED material market forecast, saying that the market will reach $1.4 billion in 2021 (up 32% from 2020), and grow at a 16% CAGR from 2019 ($927 million) to 2025, to reach $2.18 billion by 2025.

DSCC takes a look into the material cost for LG Display's WOLED TV panels. LGD will likely manage to implement incremental improvements in material utilization and price, which will enable the company to almost halve the material cost of its TV panels- from $88.14 per sqm in 2019 to $47.19 per sqm by 2025.

LG Display posted its financial results for Q2 2021, with revenues up 31% from 2020 to $6 billion and a profit of around $370 million. This was the company's best quarter in terms of revenues - as it enjoyed high OLED TV and pOLED sales, an increase in LCD panel price and good performance in displays for IT products.

LG Display says it shipped over 3.5 million OLED TV panels in the first half of 2021, and it is on track to sell 8 million panels within the year. LGD aims to increase its capacity and produce 10 million OLED TV panels in 2022 and 11 million in 2023.

Towards the end of 2020, Merck announced that it is expanding its OLED material production site in Korea. The company today announced that HTM production commenced at the site.

Merck is already supplying HTM (Hole Transport Materials) to LGD, to be used in large OLED TV production. Merck is now starting to supply HTM materials for LGD's mobile p-OLED displays as well.

Omdia says that according to its estimates, LG Display will produce 8.3 million OLED TVs in 2021, a 86% increase from 2020 (4.5 million units). The company increased its estimates slightly (previously Omdia said that in 2021 LGD will produce 8.1 million panels).

LG Display's own target for 2021 is 8 million units. Demand for premium TVs is on the increase, and LG Display increased its production capacity, mostly at its Guangzhou line. LG Display's production of 48-inch and 42-inch panels may also decrease its average panel size which may increase total unit shipments.

In 2021, LG Display started shipping a new 83-inch 4K OLED TV panel, and LG Electronics is now shipping the 83-inch OLED C1 in the US and Korea. The 83-inch C1 is now shipping $5,999. The 48-inch C1 model costs $1,399.

The 2021 C1 OLED TV range features LG's 4th generation a9 AI processor, the company's latest webOS v6 and supports HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Atmos. For gamers, the TVs offer HDMI 2.1, G-SYNC, FreSync, VRR and ALLM.

Korea-based OLED materials maker Solus Advanced Materials (previously Doosan Solus) announced that the company will start supplying HTL materials for LG Display, for its E3 line in Paju, used to produce OLED TVs.

According to reports from Korea, up until now Merck was LGD's sole HTL supplier (for large-area WOLED production), and Solus will now replace some of the HTL materials previously supplied by Merck. Solus hopes to expand shipments to LGD and supply HTL materials for LGD's other large-area WOLED fabs.

UBI Research says that the market for medium to large OLED displays (10-inch and up, used in IT and TV applications) has risen 156% in Q1 2021 compared the Q1 2020. Total sales reached $1.45 billion in the quarter.

Most of the growth comes from TV and laptop displays. LG Display produced 1.6 million OLED TV panels in the quarter, while sales for laptops reached 1.1 million panels. TV panels accounted for the majority of sales (as average panel price is much higher) - 81.6% of the market.

LG Display says that OLED TV production is more environmentally friendly than LCD TV production. A 65-inch LCD requires around 5.2 Kg of plastic, while a similarly-sized OLED uses only 0.43 Kg of plastics.

LG Display says that in Q1 2021 alone its plastic consumption was lower by 71,550 tons compared to what it would have been if it produced LCD TVs instead of OLED TVs.