OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 63

Our friends from FlatPanelsHD visited LG Display in Korea, and came back with some interesting information regarding LG's plans for the OLED TV market.

First of all, LG is still developing its 0.97mm wallpaper-thin OLED TV with an aim to make it more durable - and also to figure out the cable issues. Currently LG is using an external box for all the connections - and LG considers using this design in future OLED TVs so the display itself can stay as thin as possible. The current plan is to release a 0.97 mm OLED TV commercially towards the end of 2016.

In February 2015, Planar Systems unveiled a 55" Full-HD transparent OLED prototype, and now the company launched this display as a commercial product branded as the Planar LookThru display.

Planar is now accepting pre-orders for these displays, with mass production beginning in February 2016. The standard model pricing starts at $14,995.

Digitimes reports that LG is planning to allocate $3.55 billion to further expand their 8-Gen OLED fab in Paju. A final decision is expected by the end of November. This massive investment will enable LGD to increase its capacity by 40,000 monthly substrates, which means LGD will have a total capacity of almost 80,000 monthly substrates.

In August 2015 LGD announced plans to invest around $8.5 billion in OLED capacity in the next three years, and they are now allocating these funds. Interestingly, Digitimes says that the new Gen-8 fab will be used to make both OLED TV panels and small/medium flexible AMOLEDs - to be used in mobile phones and other devices. LGD already committed to a Gen-6 flexible AMOLED fab, so it makes more sense that they will build a dedicated OLED TV fab in a bid to dominate the OLED TV market.

Amazon.com today lists LG's 2015 55EG9100 55" curved Full-HD OLED TV for $1,885 - down from $1,999. This follows several price drops for LG's 4K 55" OLEDs too, which are now shipping for $2,999.

LG's older Full-HD OLED TVs are even cheaper of course. The 2014 model (55EC9300) costs $1,499 at Amazon.com, but some retailers carry it at $1,499.

Update: originally we posted that the market for solution-based OLEDs will be $395 million in 2020, but the correct UBI is estimate is much higher - $2.4 billion

UBI Research estimates that solution based OLED processes could reduce the price of a 55" OLED TV panel by as much as 43" compared to the currently used WRGB evaporation based process.

UBI further says that solution-based OLEDs will be cheaper to produce than LCD panels. The company estimates that companies will start mass producing solution-based OLED TVs in 2018, and the market of solution-based panels will reach $2.4 billion by 2020.

LG Display updated their OLED TV sales forecast to 2015 and 2016, stating that they now expect to sell between 400,000 and 500,000 OLED TVs in 2015 and a million TVs in 2016 - down from 600,000 TVs in 2015 and 1.5 million in 2016.

There are several reasons for LG's production cut - first of all LG sees a larger 65" TV (and 77") share then they expected - more people are buying 65" OLED TVs rather than 55" ones, which means that less TVs are being produced overall. The expect to see a further decline in the 55" OLED TV share - to 60% in 2016.

Mirage Vision, a US-based outdoor television outfitters announced the world's first outdoor OLED TV, which is a weather-proof LG 65" 4K curved OLED TV:

A few days ago LG lowered the price of their 2014 model Full-HD 55" curved OLED TV (55EC9300) to only $1,799. It turns out that some online retailed actually offer this TV for only $1,199 - which is quite within reach of many consumers. It's great to see such relatively low prices for an OLED TV, even for a last-year model.

LG's 2015 model (the 55EG9100) is now shipping for $1,999.

LG Electronics says that it will start offering OLED-based commercial display products for the business-to-business (B2B) sector next year. In fact, LGE says it will launch a "full-fledged effort" in the OLED digital signage business.

LG Electronics will start with large-sized digital signs for public places - such as airports. This decision comes following LG Display managed to solve its OLED yield and technology issues.

We just posted on LG's new lower prices for their new (2015-models) 4K curved and flat OLEDs, with the 55" one shipping for $2,999. If you can live with a Full-HD resolution, you'd be please to know that LG also lowered the price of its Full-HD OLEDs. The 2015 model (the 55EG9100) is now shipping for $1,999.

LG also lowered the price of the 2014 model (55EC9300) to only $1,799.