OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 67

LG Display is going to host a press release on Aug 17 in their Paju complex to celebrate the company's 20th anniversary. Officials in the company says that they during the conference LGD will announce a revised business strategy - focused on OLED displays.

According to a report on Korea Times, LG will reveal its strategy to create an OLED ecosystem with local partners and suppliers - and also an "OLED camp" with Chinese and Japanese TV makers. LG will highly its commitment to the OLED business and explain how and why OLEDs are superior to LCDs.

A year ago Panasonic unveiled new 65" 4K OLED TV prototypes, later showing the same prototypes at CES 2015. Those OLED TVs used LG Display's WRGB 65" 4K panels, and Panasonic executives promised to release these TVs later in 2015.

According to a French blogger, Panasonic is going to unveil their first OLED TV model at IFA 2015 next month. The model will be called 65CZ950 and it will be a curved 4K 65" TV that supports HDR.

Last week we reported that LG is set introduce new OLED TV models to the Korean market, including flat OLEDs. While we do not have model numbers and details yet, Business Korea updates that the new OLED TVs are slimmer and lighter compared to the previous models.

LG Electronics's new OLED TVs are only 4.8 mm thick (for the 55" 4K models). Those TVs are super lightweight, too - they weigh just 14 kg and to make sure customers know that, those OLEDs are hung from the ceiling with wires in some stores.

In January 2015, LG introduced six new OLED TVs, including flat, curved and bendable ones - and all of them featuring 4K resolution. Up until now the company only launched two curved OLEDs (the 55" and 65" EG9600). LG today says that they will soon launch new OLED TV models to the Korean market, including flat OLEDs.

This is great news as even though LG claims that image quality in curved panels is better, many consumers prefer flat OLEDs as these look better when wall mounted. The price of the flat models will be the same as that of the curved models.

LG's OLED TV prices continue to drop: the 2015-model UHD (4K) 65" curved OLED TV (65EG9600) is now offered at $6,499. This is a $500 price drop from yesterday's price, and $2,500 from the original $8,999 price.

LG's EG9600 TVs were introduced in early 2015, featuring a new anti-glare filter, webOS 2.0 OS and quad-core CPUs. The 55" model, (55EG9600) costs $4,499.

ETNews posted the following chart, showing what seems to be LG Display's own forecasts for UHD (4K) OLED TV production from 2014 to 2020. These are just 4K OLED TVs - LGD still produces Full-HD OLEDs as well (for example in 2015, LGD plans to produce 86,000 FHD TVs, bringing the total number of OLED TV produced to 600,000).

According to the OLED Association LG indeed managed to increase production yields of 4K OLEDs. The company is now conducting extensive R&D in inkjet printing of OLEDs as this seems to be a promising route towards greater material efficiency and faster production

DisplaySearch estimates that 35,200 OLED TVs were sold, globally, in the first quarter of 2015. This is a seven-fold increase from Q1 2014 (4,600 units). DisplaySearch says that the OLED TV market will grow from around 400,000 in 2015 to 7 million in 2019.

The current 35,200 estimate is actually lower than DisplaySearch's previous estimate of over 53,000 OLED TVs in the quarter. LG themselves aim to produce around 600,000 OLED TVs in 2015.

LG Electronics continues to push OLED TV prices down, and now Amazon lists the 2015-model UHD (4K) 65" curved OLED TV (65EG9600) at $6,999, or down $2,000 from the original $8,999 price.

LG's EG9600 TVs were introduced at CES 2015, featuring a new anti-glare filter, webOS 2.0 OS and quad-core CPUs. The 55" model, (55EG9600) is shipping for $4,499.

Last month Samsung Display unveiled large-size (55") mirror and transparent OLED display panels, and exhibited those new prototypes in partnership with jewelry company Chow Sang Sang.

According to new reports, Samsung now decided to start mass producing those displays by the end of 2015. Those displays will be produced at Samsung's existing A2 AMOLED fab. SDC already secured some customers, including Chow Sang Sang - that has almost 200 jewelry stores in China and Hong Kong.

LG Electronics announced that it is going to cooperate with Google in promoting its OLED TVs. LG will use YouTube and other Google tools to help increase OLED TV awareness, targeting the global high-end consumer market (estimated at around 100 million).

LGD aims to produce 600,000 OLED TVs in 2015 and 1.5 million in 2016. Some reports say that LG's OLED sales are lower than expected - which may explain why LG is attempting a global marketing push. LGE recently reduced $1,000 from its 2015-model UHD 55" curved OLED TV, but OLED prices are still considerably higher than competing LCD models.