December 2018

LG Display has already demonstrated rollable OLED TVs (and according to reports it aims to release the first such TV to the market in 2019) - but Samsung has been left behind as its current LCD-QLED TV technology choice does not enable rollable TVs.

LGD's prototype rollable TV (unveiled in 2018) rolls vertically, inside a single case at the bottom. According to a new patent recently awarded in the US (USPTO #10,162,387) Samsung has a different design in mind - a TV that rolls horizontally, as you can see in the image above.

Towards the end of 2015 LG Display announced that it plans to build a new OLED fab (P10) in Paju in a $8.7 billion investment. The P10 was supposed to produce both LCD and OLED displays (mostly OLED TV panels, but also mid-sized flexible OLEDs), and production was planned to begin towards the end of 2018.

In 2017, we heard reports that LGD decided to cancel the LCD production at the P10 fab and focus exclusively on OLED displays. A new report from Business Korea confirms this report - and says that LG also decided to postpone the production at the P10 as the shift to OLED technologies is challenging - especially as LGD intends to produce OLEDs on 10.5-Gen substrates for the first time at the P10 fab.

2018 is soon over - and this has been a somewhat challenging year for the OLED industry. The beginning of the year saw a slump in OLED shipments following disappointing iPhone X shipments, slower adoption in Chinese smartphone brands and delays in OLED capacity increases by OLED makers. Towards the end of the 2018, however, the industry started to pick up but OLED adoption is still expected to be slower than what we hoped for in 2017.

Here are the top 10 stories posted on OLED-Info in 2018, ranked by popularity (i.e. how many people read the story):

1. Google and LGD developed a 1443 PPI 4.3" 120Hz VR AMOLED display (Mar 12)
2. Pulse-width modulation (PWM) in OLED displays (Jan 14)
3. Apple's iPhone wins burn-in test over Samsung's flagship OLED phones (Jan 5)
4. Samsung Display demonstrates its latest OLED displays at SID 2018 (May 30)
5. OLED Ink-jet printing market situation, early 2018 (Jan 17)
6. LG announces its 2018 OLED TV lineup, no big surprises there (Jan 3)
7. Samsung Display unveils new VR AMOLED displays at SID 2018 (May 29)
8. Samsung says it will release a consumer Micro-LED TV in 2019 (Jul 22)
9. IHS: Apple is developing a new LTPO backplane, may introduce it in future iPhones (Aug 31)
10. LG Display developed the world's first 88" 8K OLED display (Jan 1)

Earlier this month we reported that BOE started to construct its 3rd 6-Gen flexible AMOLED production line in Chongqing's Liangjiang district (the B12 line). The Chongqing line will join BOE's first flexible 6-Gen OLED fab in Chengdu (the B7) and its second line in Mianyang.

BOE now announced plans for another large investment in a new flexible OLED fab, this one in Fuzhou, Fujian. This fab will be similar to BOE's other fabs - a 6-Gen (1500×1850 mm) line with a capacity of 48,000 substrates. The investment will total 46.5 billion Yuan (about $6.75 billion USD). This fourth line will bring BOE's total flexible OLED capacity to 192,000 monthly substrates.

Earlier this month JOLED unveiled new display prototypes at FineTech Japan. Today we have received this interesting new video from JOLED that shows the displays in action:

In the video you can see all of JOLED's new prototypes. First up is the Automotive demo - JOLED demonstrated two panels, a 12.3" 1920x720 (167 PPI) panel and a 12.2" 1920x1280 (180 PPI) panel. Both are printed on LTPS backplanes (as do the rest of the company's small and medium sized panels). JOLED's latest investors, Denso and Toyoto Tsusho, are both helping the company with its entry into the automotive display market.

According to its plans, LG Display aims to ship around 2.9 million OLED TV panels in 2018, and the Korean panel maker expects that its production capacity expansion will allow it to ship around 4 million panels in 2019.

LGD's largest customer is LG Electronics, but the company is also enjoying strong sales to Japanese TV makers. The Nikkei Asian Review says that in 2018 the company will ship 500,000 panels to Sony and 200,000 to Panasonic, and next year it expects to increase its shipments to Sony to 850,000 units and to Panasonic to 300,000 units. LG Electronics OLED TV market share will be around 50-60% in 2019.

IHS says that OLED panels take up to 61.1% of the total smartphone display market in Q3 2018, by revenues. OLED sales reached $6.6 billion in the quarter, out of a $10.7 billion market.

The leading OLED producer is still of course Samsung Display - which accounted for 93.3% of the total smartphone OLED panel market (and 94.2% of the flexible OLED panel market). Samsung's OLED dominance also helps it to enjoy a 57.8% market share in the total smartphone market (LCD+OLED) - far ahead of BOE (7.8%) and Tianma (7.7%) which are the 2nd and 3rd largest smartphone display producers.

In CES 2018, LG Electronics demonstrated its 65" rollable OLED TV prototype, showing how such a display can be used to create a TV that rolls into its base. Last month we reported that LG plans to showcase its rollable TV again at CES 2019, and now Bloomberg reports that LG aims to actually release this TV as a commercial product in 2019, citing "a person familiar with the matter".

It was already reported before that the rollable TV will take "center stage" in LG's CES event - which hinted that LG is indeed close to commercializing such a device. In 2017, LGD did say it plans to bring rollable OLED TVs to market by 2020.

According to Taiwan-based Topology Research Institute, Sony, Oculus and HTC will continue and dominate the VR market in 2019. Sony will continue to be the leading VR vendor, with sales of its HMD to grow 10% in 2019 to reach 2.2 million units.

The second largest will be Oculus Rift, which will see a surge of 80% in shipments to reach 1.7 million in 2019. HTC will also see a nice sales increase of 33% and the Topology expects HTC to ship 800,00 VR HMDs in 2019. In total, Topology expects the market to grow 29% to reach 6 million units in 2019.

OLED Korea is an international OLED-focused event, organized by UBI Research, and the OLED-Info team will attend next year's event, which will take place in Seoul, Korea in March 6-7, 2019.

UBI announced the final speaker list for the event, and it seems as if OLED Korea 2019 has a great lineup. We'll be happy to schedule meetings - so if you plan to attend OLED Korea 2019, do contact us!