October 2015

LG Display's OLED unit is currently mostly focused on OLED TV production, but the company also has plans to enter the small OLED display market with its flexible plastic-based OLED panels. According to reports, LGD is stepping up its effort to market OLED panels for Chinese phone makers.

LGD currently mostly makes small flexible OLEDs for wearables (such as Apple's Watch and LG's own Watch Urbane 2). LG makes a single handset flexible OLED, the curved 5.5" FHD panel adopted in the company's own G Flex 2 - but this was never really a mass produced device. LGD is also said to be developing a smartphone display that curves around the edges (a-la the GS6 edge)

Samsung announced their financial results for Q3 2015 - the company's operation profit reached $6.46 billion (up from $3.8 billion in Q3 2014, but down from the $9.6 billion record it recorded in Q3 2013). The company reports strong Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ sales (both phones sport 5.7" 2560x1440 Super AMOLED displays, a flexible one on the S6 edge+).

SDC's OLED business experienced improved earnings led by launch of new products and improve productivity. OLED shipments increase by over 30% over Q2 2015 - mostly due to an increase in low-end and mid-end panel shipments and external customer base. Samsung expects the smartphone market to slow down in 2016 and it plans to diversify its product line up and continue to expand its customer base.

The first-generation Apple Watch uses a flexible OLED display, exclusively produced by LG Display. In June 2015 it was rumored that say that Apple signed up Samsung Display to be the second OLED supplier for the next-generation Watch, and today ET News re-iterated the same report.

According to ET News, Apple is also considering ordering AMOLED panels from Samsung for the next-generation iPhone 7. ET News says that Apple will decide on the iPhone 7 display in November - and it it's going to be a flexible OLED display it will have a huge effect on Samsung as the Korean company will have to massively increase its flexible OLED capacity.

Corning announced that Samsung Display adopted the company's Lotus NXT glass as its OLED panel substrate. The Lotus NXT glass was announced in June 2015, and Corning reveals that that Samsung already adopted those substrates for the Galaxy Note 5's 5.7" Quad-HD (2560x1440, 518PPI) Super AMOLED display. The Note 5 was released in August 2015.

Lotus NXT improves the 2nd-gen XT glass (launched in May 2013) with lower total pitch variations. The new glass has improved stability, and better total pitch variation performance. According to Corning, this enables display makers to produce more efficient displays (up to 15% lower power consumption), or higher resolution displays (by up to 100 additional pixels per inch).

Watch this nice video from LG Display, that features our friend Raymond Soneira from DisplayMate, explaining the superiority of OLEDs over LCDs:

Update: It turns out that these are actually LEDs and not OLEDs in this video - and PolyPhotonix indeed developed both LED and OLED prototypes.

UK-based PolyPhotonix, in collaboration with the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), developed a wearable electronic blanket that uses printed OLED lighting to administer a phototherapy for the possible treatment of a number of skin conditions such as acne, psoriasis, eczema and jaundice. The blanket could also be used for wound healing and anti inflammatory treatments.

The blanket uses small flexible OLED devices. The treatment schedule and dosage of the light are programmable - so the treatment can be optimized and also be used for different conditions. The prototype blanket that was demonstrated also includes sensors and can log and record the usage.

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.

Digitimes reports that Samsung Display is seeing increased orders from China for small to medium sized OLED panels - mostly from smartphone makers. According to ETNews, OLED shipments to China will rise to 24 million panels in Q4 2015 up from 4 million panels in Q1.

Several Chinese phone makers adopted AMOLED panels in their latest phones - including Huawei, Vivo, Oppo, ZTE, Gionee, Meizu and others. Digitimes estimates that 30% of smartphones released in 2016 will use AMOLED displays.