Samsung reported their financial results for Q4 2013. Operating profit was lower than expected at $7.8 billion (compared to $8.3 billion in Q4 2012). Regarding OLEDs, Samsung says that total OLED shipments were actually down during the quarter, even though "new product sales increased".

Samsung however is expecting the OLED market to grow, as they plan to start adopting OLEDs in more products - including mid-range smartphones, tablets and wearable devices. The company will also launch "upgraded" flexible OLED panels in 2014.

The OLED Handbook (2013 edition) is available on Amazon.com, and now the US retailer is offering $10 off the listed price (which is normally $149.99) - and also free shipping in the US. If you've been waiting for a good time to buy our OLED guide, this may be a good chance to do so.

If you prefer the digital edition (PDF download), it costs $97. We also offer site and enterprise license options.

During LG Display's quarterly conference call, the company's officials updated on the LGD's OLED program. They confirmed again that the current flexible OLED monthly capacity is 6,000 4.5-gen substrates each month, and said that they have plans to expand the capacity towards the end of 2014. It seems that they mean to double the capacity, but their plans aren't fixed yet.

Regarding their M2 8-Gen OLED TV fab, it is progressing as planned and they still expect to ramp up that line in the second half of 2014. The capacity will not reach the full 26,000 monthly substrates at first, they will ramp up in two stages. The full capacity will only be reached in 2015.

Philips launched a new OLED lighting panel, the Lumiblade SI210.105, aimed towards signage and emergency lighting applications. This panel is 210x105 mm in size and only 2.5 mm thin, and features a luminance of 800 cd/m², a color temperature of 4,500K and a lifetime of over 5 years (presumable with continuous operation).

Philips tells us that they see a real market for OLED lighting in emergency lighting. In fact ETAP already launched the world's first OLED emergency lighting product, the K4, and indeed they use the SI210.105 panel. Philips are now offering the panel for other OEMs. The OLED itself is a white OLED, and the OEM inserts a thin film with the graphics on top.

Pixelligent Technologies has been awarded an SBIR Phase I grant by the US Department of Energy (DOE). The nine-month, $150,000 program will enable Pixelligent (in collaboration with OLEDWorks) to accelerate the development of its nanoadditives for use in OLED lighting.

The project is titled "Advanced Light Extraction Material for OLED Lighting", and its aim is to develop an internal light-extraction structure that will be fully compatible with OLED device manufacturing processes and operating conditions that can expedite the commercialization of white OLED lighting.

Germany's tesa, one of the world's leading manufacturers of self-adhesive tapes, launched a new barrier adhesive tape for OLED encapsulation bonding, suitable for flexible panel production.

The new barrier adhesive tapes are transparent transfer barrier tapes that feature the company's DrySeal liner technology (which enables extreme drying of barrier adhesive). This realizes an immediate and direct encapsulation of OLED materials over the full surface without initial degradations caused by water-vapor.

Back in December 2012, rumors started to circulate about an upcoming Apple smartwatch called the iWatch, that will use a small PMOLED. Later rumors suggested Apple decided to use a plastic flexible OLED, possibly from LG Display.

Apple 2011 flexible OLED watch patent

Today a Korean publication (Digital Daily) reported that LGD has indeed been selected as the exclusive supplier for Apple's iWatch. LGD will start producing 1.52" OLED panels in Q3 2014, with an initial production volume of 2 million panels per month. The iWatch itself will be released in Q4 2014. The story was later removed from the Korean site, which can mean anything.

LG Electronics announced that next month it will launch the G Flex phone in more than 20 European countries, including the UK, Germany, France and Italy. Currently the phone has been available in Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, and it's also coming to the US for AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

LGE says that they are confident in the global marketplace for a curved premium smartphone. Of course it's going to be very expensive and so will remain a niche product. According to some reports 13,000 G Flex phones were shipped (mostly in Korea obviously).

Kateeva announced that the company is expanding its Korea operation, by absorbing the assets of Seoul-based OLED Plus - an OLED equipment design, sales, service and support company headed by OLED industry veteran, KB (Kyung Bin) Bae, who will become the general manager of Kateeva Korea, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kateeva.

Two months ago Kateeva unveiled their YIELDJet OLED ink-jet printing system. The company now says that interest in this technology is high - especially in Korea, and commercial shipments are "imminent".

BASF and the Graphene Research Centre (GRC) at the National University of Singapore announced a new partnership to develop the use of graphene in organic electronics devices - such as OLED devices and OPVs. The goal of this collaboration is to interface graphene films with organic electronic materials, with an aim to create more efficient and flexible lighting devices.

In this collaboration, the GRC will contribute its graphene knowledge (the synthesis and characterization of the graphene) while BASF is focused on organic materials. Of course BASF is also engaged with graphene research (for several years) and are looking to speed up their device development with this new partnership.