OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 46

A shopping mall in Dubai, simply called the Dubai Mall, unveiled the world's largest OLED installation. The huge OLED screen uses 820 55" OLED panels (made by LG Display) to create a 50 x 14 meters display made from 1.7 billion pixels.

This is actually not only the world's largest OLED display, it is also the world's largest HD video wall and the highest-resolution one. The display is placed on top of a large aquarium tank and was installed by Emaar Entertainment.

A few days ago LG Display disclosed its financial results for Q2 2017 and announced a large OLED investment plan to increase capacity for both OLED TVs and small-sized flexible OLEDs.

During its investor conference call, LG Display disclosed that it plans to finance some of the capacity increase through strategic partnerships such as customer commitments. In the past months we heard reports that both Apple and Google are in talks with LGD regarding an investment to secure OLED capacity. It seems likely that LGD now verified these reports - but the investments are probably not finalized yet.

DSCC expects the OLED market to rapidly grow in the near future, as AMOLED production capacity will increase at a CAGR of 41% from 2016 (5.3 million square meters) to 2021 (29.4 million square meters). OLED revenues will reach $21 billion in 2017 (a rise of 46% compared to 2016) and will reach $46 billion in 2021.

Smartphones are still the largest OLED application by far - with a 86% market share (revenues) in 2017 and 81% in 2021. The second largest application by revenues are OLED TVs, and other applications follow with a small market share - but one that will increase as supply looses in the future. If we look at shipments, then smartphones acount for 94% of OLED shipments, and the 2nd and 3rd applications are VR headsets and smart watches. OLED TV shipments will reach 6.5 million in 2021 (rising at a CAGR of 49% from 2016 to 2021).

LG Display announced its results for Q2 107 - revenues increased 13% from 2016 to KRW6.63 trillion (around $6 billion USD) and net income reached KRW737 billion ($660 million USD). TV panels accounted for 46% of LGD's revenues, mobile devices 22% and desktop monitors and tablets and notebook displays accounted for the rest.

In addition to the earning results, LGD detailed its investment path for OLEDs, as was decided in a recent board meeting. First of all, LGD decided to build a 10.5-Gen (2940x3370 mm) OLED line in its upcoming P10 fab in Paju. LGD will make an up-front investment of KRW2.8 trillion ($2.5 billion USD). The whole fab will require more investments but LGD says it is taking a prudent approach - it will only begin mass production of OLED TVs after stabilizing the technology for these extra large size substrates.

CE Week held its 13th annual TV shootout, and for the fourth times in a row, LG's OLED TV won. LG's OLEDE7 TV (65") won in all categories - and was crowned ‘King of TV’ in the Shootout.

For the first time ever the shootout included an OLED TV from another maker - Sony's A1E. The Sony TV came close to LG's OLED and won an honorary mention. LG's OLEDE7 TVs cost $3,500 for the 55" model and $4,800 for the 65" model. Sony's A1-E Bravia OLED TVs cost $3,999 (55"), $5,499 (65") and $19,999 (77").

Following LGD's recent demonstration of a 77" flexible and transparent OLED display, the company has now decided (according to Business Korea, anyway) to start producing rollable large-area (55 to 75 inch) OLED TVs in 2020.

LGD will produce these rollable TVs in its upcoming P10 OLED fab in Paju. The P10 is LGD's most ambitious OLED fab - with a price tag of over $8 billion, it is expected to commence production in 2018, although it will take some time before mass production begins. The P10 will exclusively be used to produce OLEDs - both OLED TV panels (9-Gen or 10-Gen substrates, it seems LG did not decide yet) and small/medium flexible OLEDs.

Korean news site DDaily posted an interesting article that states that LG Display is looking to replace the fluorescent OLED emitter used in its OLED TVs with a blue TADF emitter.

Following the introduction into LG's OLED TV production process, LG hopes to also use TADF materials in its small and medium OLED production. The report is a bit confusing, but it seems that LGD also aims to use its WOLED display in small and medium display formats - even for VR applications.

IHS says that AMOLED panel shipment will increase 63% in 2017, driven by strong demand from smartphone makers. Looking forward the AMOLED market will experience fast growth, as demand will rise for smartphones, TVs, VR HMDs and mobile PCs.

In 2017 the AMOLED market will reach $25.2 billion in revenues, up from about $15 billion in 2016. The OLED TV market will grow to 1.5 million units (up from from 890,000 units in 2016). Mobile display resolution continue to increase, and in 2017 68% of shipments will be of FHD, QHD and WQHD resolutions.

Digital Trends posted that interesting flagship TV shootout, pitching LG's E7 OLED TV against Samsung's Q9 QLED TV. Both TVs offer great image quality, and both has their strengths and weaknesses - but Digital Trends says at the end of the day they prefer LG's OLED.

According to Digital Trends, pretty much everybody who looked at these two TVs stacked up against each other chose the LG as the best TV - if by a razor-thin margin. Credit is due to Samsung, who did manage to produce a very bright, sharp and great looking TV though.

In October 2016 Sharp announced that it will invest $570 million and build OLED pilot lines at its plants in Osaka and in the Mie Prefecture. The pilot lines will begin OLED production in the summer of 2018.

It was always assumed that Sharp will focus on small and medium sized OLED panels with hopes to join Samsung and become an OLED supplier for Apple's iPhones and iPads. Today, however, Sharp announced that in the Osaka plant it will also develop large-area OLED TV panels.