February 2019

LG did not yet announce the price and availability of its 2019 OLED TVs, but B&H photo in the US now lists LG's OLED TV range - ready for pre-orders.

So first up we have the basic model, the OLED C9. The 55" model costs $2,496.99 while the 65" one costs $3,496.99 and the 77" costs $6,996.99. The C9 is LG's basic 2019 OLED TV, based on LG's 2nd-gen Alpha 9 intelligent processor which enables LG's ThinQ AI to offer new display algorithms and Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant.

Tianma demonstrated new display technologies at Embedded World in Germany, including two new OLED prototypes. First up is a 10.3" 91 PPI transparent AMOLED panel that features a transparency of up to 50% and high brightness (not disclosed).

The second display is a 4.92" 403 PPI AMOLED that was produced using an ink-jet printing process. Tianma's technology was jointly developed with Guangdong Juhua Printing and Display Technology (which was established in 2016 by CSoT and TianMa).

China-based TCL has unveiled a new foldable OLED phone prototype at MWC 2019. The device uses a 7.2" 2048 x 1546 AMOLED display that folds inwardly (in a similar way to the Samsung Galaxy Fold). TCL's device, however, is a prototype and not a product.

TCL is both a smartphone maker and a display producer. This device was demonstrated by the smartphone maker arm - and we are not sure whether it uses a foldable OLED produced at TCL's own OLED lines (CSoT's T4 6-Gen flexible OLED line in Wuhan should enter production soon) or whether the panel is produced by Samsung, BOE or Visionox.

SID DisplayWeek, the world's premier display industry event will take place this year in San Jose, California on May 12-17. We discussed the event and the display industry at large with Sri Peruvemba - a dear personal friend and a Vice President at the SID organization.

Q: Hello Sri - thanks for your time! SID DisplayWeek has always been our favorite display industry event. Can you tell us what to expect from the 2019 edition? Any new planned event features?

Thank you, its my favorite event as well. In 2019, we can expect over 200 exhibitors showing all the latest display tech and applications in AR/VR, automotive, OLED, AMOLED, micro-LED, LCDs, quantum dots and more.

In September 2019 Nubia unveiled a smartband that turns into a smartphone - with a foldable OLED display. Nubia said it will launch its Alpha foldable smartband by the end of 2018. This did not happen, but at MWC 2019 the company demonstrated the device again - and announced a new release date and prices.

The Nubia Alpha will start shipping in April 2019 in the US and Europe - but only the Bluetooth variant. The cost will be around $500. Nubia will also release an eSIM device - which will cost $624 and will launch in Q3 2019.

LG announces three new smartphones that feature AMOLED displays. First up we have the G8 ThinQ, a high end smartphone that features a 6.1" 1440x3120 Crystal Sound OLED, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, 6 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, a microSD slot and a triple camera setup.

LG also offers a variant called the G8s ThinQ which sports a slightly larger display (but with lower density) - a 6.2" 1080x2240 pOLED. Otherwise the specifications are quite similar. The idea is that a CSO display vibrates and turns into a diaphragm - to produce high quality sound. LG says that such a speaker improves the clarity compared to regular smartphone speakers. The G8 ThinQ will also use other audio technology, including DST-X 3D Surround Sound emulation, Hi-Fi Quad DAC, Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) and more.

Huawei launched its first foldable smartphone, the Mate X with a glorious 8" 2200x2480 foldable AMOLED display that folds outwards. When closed, the phone operates as it has two displays - a 6.6" 1148x2480 on the front and a smaller 6.38" 2480x892 display on the back (which makes room for the cameras).

The Mate X specifications include 5G connectivity, a Kirin 980 octa-core chipset, 8 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage, a NM memory slot and a quad camera setup with Leica optics.

DSCC released the interesting (but confusing, note the legend starts at 350M) chart below, detailing the market share of smartphone OLED producers in 2016-2019. As can be seen Samsung will remain the dominant producer, but its market share in 2019 will drop from 94% in 2018 to around 85%.

Non-SDC shipments will increase to 73 million units in 2019 - led by LG Display (~25 million units), BOE (around 20 million) and Visionox (around 15 million units).

Exposure to blue light has been linked to many health issues - and one of the advantages of OLED displays and lighting panels has always been lower blue light emission compared to LED based technologies.

Samsung recently announced its latest AMOLED displays (adopted in the Galaxy S10 family of smartphones), and the company now says that its newest OLEDs produces considerably less blue-light emissions than any other mobile display in use today. Samsung's blue-light-eradicating advancement has just been certified by world-class German testing and certification body, TÃœV Rheinland, which awarded Samsung's AMOLEDs its ‘Eye Comfort’ certification.

DSCC has updated its OLED market forecast for 2019, and the company now expects OLED revenues to reach $28.6 billion (up from $26.5 billion in 2018 - but lower than DSCC's previous estimate). In terms of area shipments, 2019 will see a 25% increase compared to 2018, with strong growth in both the TV and smartphone market.

Looking at OLED applications, TVs will have a market share of 42% in terms of area production, but only 9% in terms of revenues. All OLED production will reach 572 million units, growing by 16% compared to 2018.