OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 69

IGNIS Innovation has secured $14 million in a new financing round. Ignis will use the new funds to accelerate product development especially the recently announced True Vision Display technology. True Vision Displays use the company's compensation technologies which extend OLED display lifetime and efficiency, and also enable HDR - even on mobile displays.

CSOT 5.5-inch MaxLife AMOLED prototype

Ignis further said that is working with partners to develop True Vision Display OLEDs for the wearable, smartphone, automotive, tablet and TV markets. Ignis expects the first products to launch next year.

A couple of months ago, LG said that they aim to unveil HDR OLED TVs in Q3 2015 - with a higher brightness compared to regular OLED TVs. Now LG says that their new EG9600 OLED TVs will soon be getting HDR support - via a firmware upgrade.

LG did not disclose when this will happen exactly - but they will release the upgrade "once technical specifications for HDR are finalized".

Update: here's a video showing the new OLED prototypes in action

Maybe in response to analysts doubting the future of OLED TVs, LG Display held a showcase today in Korea with its latest OLED TV prototypes. So first of all, the company unveiled a new 0.97 mm thick 55" flat OLED panel, that virtually "sticks to the wall" using magnets. The OLED panel itself weighs only 1.9 Kg.

LG Display also demonstrated a convex OLED panel - that will mainly be used for digital signage for large-scale outdoor advertising (this is not a new idea, Panasonic demonstrated similar panels last year). Finally, LG revealed plans to release a large 99" TV within the year.

DisplaySearch says that the falling prices of LCD TVs make it very difficult for OLED TVs to penetrate the market. According to DisplaySearch, OLED TVs will not become profitable for LG Display before 2019.

DisplaySearch estimates that LGD currently loses $581.8 on each OLED TV sold. The OLED Business unit lost 535 billion Won ($491 million) in 2014. In 2019, they will still lose money - $159.9 on each TV sold. In 2019, OLED TVs will still be more expensive than LCDs. Quantum Dot TVs will also hurt OLED TV sales.

LG Display's CFO says that LGD expects its OLED display panel business to become profitable in a few years. LGD is on track to invite major TV makers to join is OLED Alliance, an initiative the company announced in March 2015.

He says that if they see more demand for OLED TVs, then they will invest more, and the next two and three years are crucial for the company to "gauge the profitability of its OLED business".

In the past few weeks we heard reports that Samsung Display decided to re-enter the OLED TV market - and some reports even suggested that Samsung aims to use LG's WRGB architecture. During the company's quarterly conference call, a Samsung Display official said that there are no plans to re-enter the OLED TV market in the near future as "OLED TVs are not in sight for the time being".

Samsung released their first OLED TV, the KN55S9C, back in June 2013. The TV was available worldwide for a short time for around $10,000, and then dropped to around $6,000 (and even lower) - but Samsung soon stopped production and never released another TV. Samsung officials repeatedly said that Samsung will not resume OLED TV production until 2016 or 2017.

UBI Research sees fast growth ahead for white-OLED displays (WRGB) in the next five years. Currently WRGB is only used in OLED TV panels (made by LG Display) and all OLED microdisplays, but UBI says the technology will be adopted in small and medium sized panels as well.

UBI sees over 150 million WRGB OLEDs produced in 2020, out of over a billion OLED displays in total - so WRGB displays will account for 15% of the OLED market. Not all of these will be large OLED TV panels of course. In terms of revenue, WRGB OLEDs will generate over $13 billion in 2020 - most of which will come from large-sized OLED panels.

Yesterday we reported that Amazon.com lowered the price of LG's 2014 65" 4K OLED TVs to $8,999 (down from $9,999) - and today the online retailer reduced the price by another $1,000 - so the 65EC9700 is now offered for $7,999.

The price of LG's 2015 65" 4K model (the 65EG9600) is still $8,999 - which at least makes sense because previously the 2014 and the 2015 models were offered at the same price. The 2015 model is still not shipping - Amazon says it will ship within 4-6 weeks.

Yesterday we posted news from Korea claiming that there is lower-then expected demand for OLED TVs, and that LGD is suffering from low UHD OLED TV yields and had to lower their production target for 2015 to 500,000 TVs (down from 600,000).

LGD reported their financial results, and during the conference call the company's Investor Relations chief clearly said that the company still aims to produce 600,000 OLED TVs in 2015. They may lower the number if they see greater demand for 65" and 77" TVs and decide to change their size mix towards more large panels. Regarding the UHD OLED yields, he says that "it is in line with our basic assumption and our track record".

Yesterday we quoted a report from Korea Times claiming that LG Electronics' OLED TV sales are lower than expected. Today another Korean publication (ETNews) runs the same story with some more details.

According to ETNews, LG Display reduced its OLED TV panel 2015 production projection to 500,000 units (down from 600,000). The main reason is that LG is seeing sluggish sales of Full-HD OLED TVs, as it faces a tough battle from Quantum-Dots enhanced LCDs.