UBI Research estimates that the OLED market will reach $32.2 billion in revenues, up from 13.8% from 2018. UBI says the the growth will come from new applications - including foldable smartphone displays, 8K OLED TVs and rollable OLED TVs. Increased yields by Chinese AMOLED makers will also contribute to the growth.

AMOLED revenues in Q4 2018 reached $7.9 billion (down 3.7% from Q3 2018 and 10.4% from Q4 2017). In the whole of 2018, revenues reached $28.3 billion, up 7.1% from 2017 ($26.4 billion). UBI sees the oversupply in the flexible OLED market to continue as high prices prevent adoption in mid-end smartphones.

In January 2019 Dell announced that it will release 15" OLED models of its 2019 XPS 15, Dell G7 15 and the Alienware m15. Back then Dell said that the laptops will ship in March 2019, but Dell’s VP General Manager now says that the target date is April.

We've been waiting for OLED laptops for many years, so one more month to wait is not a big deal - if indeed the OLED laptops will ship in April. In January Samsung Display announced that it will start mass producing its new 15.6" UHD (3840x2160) OLED display panels in February 2019. Perhaps Samsung is delaying its mass production - or perhaps this is Dell's decision or need to postpone.

According to reports, Samsung Display will hold an investment review committee on April 2019 to decide whether to go ahead with plans to start producing QD-OLED TV panels. If the plan is approved, Samsung will start installing production equipment towards the end of 2019, with mass production starting by the end of 2020 or early 2021.

According to earlier reports, Samsung aimed to start pilot production of QD-OLED TV panels in 2019. It's not clear whether the new reports suggest a delay or whether they only refer to the mass production step, with pilot production proceeding as planned.

OLED Korea is an international conference, focused on OLED technologies, organized by UBI Research. The OLED-Info team will attend this year's event, which will take place next month in Seoul, Korea (March 6-7).

We're looking for an exciting event - and are happy to schedule meetings - so if you plan to attend OLED Korea 2019, do contact us!

The Fraunhofer FEP institute has teamed up with Korean-based LetinAR to develop an ultra-low-power OLED microdisplay based optic lens for AR applications. The Fraunhofer and LetinAR will present the new technology at MWC 2019.

LetinAR's PinMR technology uses the Pinhole Effect with tiny mirrors and embedded them with eyeglass lenses. The PinMR mirrors reflect the light generated by a microdisplay and guide it into the user's pupils. Users may view the virtual image created via microdisplay equipped with magnifying see-through optics as well as the image from the real world at ease. Human eyes cannot detect the mirrors, which are smaller than pupils. Only the virtual image formed by the light reflected by those mirrors is visible.

US-based OLED material developer Molecular Glasses received a $225,000 SBIR Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation to develop non-crystallizable charge transporting organic materials as OLED functional layers and thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitter-layer hosts.

The NSF explains currently used OLED host molecules tend to crystallize and are poor solvents for the emitting molecules leading to decreased light emission efficiency and shortened device lifetime. Molecular Glasses' innovation uses isomeric mixtures of designed molecules that are amorphous and non-crystallizable in all three layers.

At CES 2019, LG Electronics announced its first rollable TV (and the world's first rollable OLED device), the 65" Signature OLED TV R. Market analysts from IHS estimate that producing each 65" rollable OLED TV will cost over $3,000 - more than three times the cost of production of LG's regular 65" OLED TV panels.

LG's new TV can roll up into its base, and has three viewing options - full view, line view and zero view. In Line View, there are six different modes, in which the TV can show the weather, the time, a home dashboard and more. Like the rest of LG's 2019 OLED range, the OLED TV R is based on the company's 2^nd-gen Alpha 9 intelligent processor the enables LG's ThinQ AI to offer new display algorithms and Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant.

Last week the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) event took place, and LG Electronics demonstrated its latest OLED and LED signage solutions. LG also used the event to launch its 55" transparent touch-enabled OLED displays:

LG has been demonstrating 55" transparent OLED displays for many years, and the latest prototype shown at CES 2019 featured a transparency of 40%. We can assume that these new commercial displays feature the same transparency. It is not clear yet when these displays will start shipping - and what will be the price.

Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) led by Mark E. Thompson (who was the first to report on efficient phosphorescent OLEDs, later commercialized at UDC) developed a new copper-based phosphorescent OLED emitter compound, that could have several advantages to the currently-used iridium compounds.

The researchers say that copper-based emitters could be cheaper (as iridium is an expensive and rare element) - but more importantly could be the key to develop an efficient and long-lasting blue OLED emitter.

DSCC says that production costs for a 55" QD-OLED TV panel at Samsung Display's 8.5-Gen fab will reach almost $800 in 2019. While this will fall to around $450 in 2022, Samsung will still lose money on every panel sold if DSCC has its price and cost estimates right.

It is important to note that most of the cost is depreciation costs - which means that in terms of cash on each panel, SDC's margins will actually be around 40%. Part of the reason for he high cost of required equipment is the need to use 12 TFT masks.. SDC is apparently looking to reduce the mask number which will lower production costs.