Panasonic recently cancelled their OLED TV joint-development project with Sony, so Panasonic's OLED plans aren't clear. The company showed six 55" curved OLED TV prototypes at CES, and according to an article in the USA Today, Panasonic does have some ambitious OLED projects.

So first of all Panasonic officials claimed that consumers should expect new panasonic OLED displays in stores in 2014. This is very interesting and hopefully Panasonic will give more details soon. Panasonic also plans to provide professional OLED displays for production, signage and security systems.

Research house IHS says that they expect flexible OLED smartphone display shipments to reach 814,000 units in 2014. IHS sees a steady but 'modest' growth in the future as shipments will almost double each year to reach 8.3 million units in 2018.

In August 2013 IHS said that they expect flexible OLED sales to reach $21.9 million in 2013 and grow quickly to almost $100 million in 2014. The flexible OLED market will continue growing at a very fast rate as it will reach almost $4 billion by 2018 and almost $12 billion by 2020.

China's Hisense is showing a 55" flat OLED TV prototype at CES 2014. Apparently the staff at Hisense's booth made it clear that this is just a prototype and the company has no plans to release it as a product any time soon.

I'm not sure who makes the OLED panel itself, but it's highly likely it is made by LG Display (LGD is already providing OLED panels for China's Skyworth). Hisense thus joins two other Chinese makers (TCL and Haier) that are also showing OLED prototypes at CES. Hopefully Hisens obtained those panels with permission...

According to a new leaked document, Samsung is set to release a 'lite' version of its Galaxy Note 3 phone. The so-called Galaxy Note 3 Neo will sport a 5.55" HD Super AMOLED display (seems similar to the Note 2 display).

It seems that the phone will be like an update to the Galaxy Note 2 - with a faster CPU and an updated Android version (4.3). It will also sport a 8mp camera and the same memory configuration of the Note 2 (2GB RAM and 16GB storage).

LG unveiled a bendable 77" 4K OLED TV prototype a couple of days ago - this panel can change from flat to curved at the press of the button, allowing consumers to enjoy a single TV that can be both flat and curved. We finally got a video showing this interesting new prototype in action:

This is just a prototype, but LG actually plan to ship this bendable TV to the US in late 2014 or early 2015. Samsung has their own bendable OLED TV at CES, by the way.

Alkilu is a new company (established in 2013 in California) that develops affordable consumer OLED lighting devices. The company unveiled their first products yetserday at the consumer electronics show.

Alkilu has a wide range of products planned - night lights, camping lights, bike lights, countdown timers, vanity mirrors and even a music conductor stand. They plan to release the first products in April or May 2014. Hopefully they'll pull that off as their prices are indeed affordable - the ladybug nightlife is only $39.95 for example, while the countdown timer will cost only $19.95.

China's BOE Display has been discussing its 5.5-Gen LTPS fab in Ordos for a long time, and a couple of months ago it seems that construction finally began. In a new report from China, it seems that BOE aims to produce flexible OLED panels at that fab. BOE will produce plastic-based AMOLEDs using an LTPS backplane.

BOE Ordos 5.5-Gen AMOLED fab

Previously we reported that it is expected that BOE will only start mass producing AMOLEDs at Ordos by the end of 2014. BOE's AMOLED fab will reportedly use high-resolution FMM deposition and a WRGB architecture (which doesn't make a lot of sense since you do not need FMM patterning for WRGB OLEDs).

Aixtron and Manz signed a strategic cooperation agreement for OLED manufacturing. The two companies will co-develop solutions for efficient OLED production, based on Aixtron's OVPD technology.

Aixtron says that together with Manz, they plan to develop a Gen-8 (2300x2500 mm) system that can deposit OLED materials efficiently. Aixtron's part in this collaboration is the further development of OVPD process technology, while Manz will contribute its experience in purifying and handling large-scale glass substrates and the development and manufacturing of large vacuum systems. Aixtron and Manz will assemble a demonstration Gen-8 system in the coming months at one of Aixtrons's clean rooms.

TCL is showing their first OLED TV prototype at CES 2014. All we know is that it is a flat 55" Full-HD panel, and it looks like this:

It's highly likely that TCL did not produce this panel (even though the company is advancing towards AMOLED production). I'd guess that LG Display provided those panels (hopefully TCL didn't just take part LG's OLED TVs without permission). LG Display is also providing OLED panels for China's Skyworth.

Sony and Panasonic recently cancelled their OLED TV joint-development project, so we weren't expecting any OLED TVs from Panasonic at CES (even though they did say they will continue to develop OLED technology alone). So it's a nice surprise to see Panasonic show six 55" curved OLED TV prototypes at CES. Interesting, three of those panels are convex and they all combine to create a long and cool S-shape display:

These are just prototype of course, but apparently the TVs are spectacular. Panasonic's earlier flat 56" 4K Prototypes (unveiled at CES 2013) used AUO produced Oxide-TFT backplanes and Sumitomo's P-OLED materials (deposited in a printing process) and a direct-emission architecture. It's highly likely that these new prototypes are made using the same materials and printing process.