Sony launched its Xperia 1, the world's first 4K OLED smartphone, at MWC 2019, and the company did not yet disclose the price or release date. Amazon now lists this new smartphone, with a $999.99 price tag (for the 128GB model). The shipping date is set at December 2019, but this is likely just a placeholder as Sony said it will ship the phone towards the end of spring (at around May).

The Xperia 1 features a tall 6.5-inch 21:9 3840x1664 AMOLED "CinemaWide" display which supportss HDR (BT.2020). The Xperia 1 also features a Snapdragon 855 chipset, 6GB of RAM, 64/128 GB of storage, a microSD slot and a triple camera. The phone is also waterproof (IP68) and it has a fingerprint sensor on the side.

Last month LG Electronics announced its G8 ThinQ with its 6.1" 1440x3120 Crystal Sound OLED. According to a new trademark filing, LG now aims to brand its CSO OLEDs as "Display Speaker".

A Crystal Sound OLED, or Display Speaker turns the flexible OLED display into high end speakers. This innovating OLED technology works for smartphones, TVs and also OLED lighting panels. In LG's trademark filing, it also hints that this technology will be used in future wearable displays.

According to Business Korea, LG Display is likely to start investing in its P10 10.5-Gen OLED TV fab in Paju by the end of the month (Q1 2019). Total investment in the P10 production fab is estimated to reach almost $10 billion.

LGD was supposed to start ordering equipment for the P10 line towards the end of 2018, but the company delayed these plans - according to an earlier BK report, LGD delayed the P10 fab in late 2018 as it found the shift to new 10.5-Gen substrates more challenging than it earlier expected, and in addition it wanted to focus on its upcoming 8.5-Gen line in Guangzhou first. Apparently LGD is now ready to start building the P10 line.

DSCC released its latest forecast for the foldable OLED market. According to DSCC 1.65 million foldable OLED panels will ship in 2019 - which will grow to 60 million panels in 2022 and just over 80 million panels in 2023.

DSCC says that foldable devices should "inevitably succeed" as device makers see these devices as a way to boost high-end smartphone revenues as this market has plateaued. DSCC says that the forecast may be even cautious - although if we compare to DSCC's previous foldable OLED estimates released at the end of 2018, they have lowered their predictions slightly.

At the OLED Korea conference, both Merck and Sumitomo detailed their latest OLED inkjet material performance.

Sumitomo is advancing with its R&D efforts, and the company says that its PLED materials will be adopted in mass production systems by 2020 (although JOLED already uses PLEDs in its displays).

Yesterday at the OLED Korea conference, LG Display detailed its future plans for its OLED TV business - and besides the expected flexible, transparent, rollable and 8K panels, the company also said it plans to start producing 48" OLED TV panels:

This is the first time we hear of such plans, and it will be very good news to the many consumer who waited patiently for smaller OLED TVs.

The first day of the OLED Korea 2019 conference is almost over - with some interesting lectures and talks by leading OLED companies and professionals. Here are some of the things under discussion today (highlights only):

• Some believe there will be a real market for >$2,000 foldable OLED devices, and some call for cost reductions before real adoption could take place
• LG Display is optimistic regarding the future of OLED TVs
• Samsung will not commit yet to its QD-OLED technology
• Both Cynora and Kyulux are rapidly progressing towards a long lasting TADF/HF blue - but it seems there's still work to be done
• Idemitsu Kosan is increasing its fluorescent OLED emitter efficiency
• Universal Display's RGBB architecture is back on the table - and the company now highlights the architecture's low blue light emission. UDC seems more optimistic then ever regarding blue PHOLED commercialization
• Equipment maker's focus is shifting to China as Korean OLED makers will not increase capacity in the near future

DSCC says that in 2018 OLED display equipment spending fell 7% compared to 2017 to reach $12.5 billion. In 2019, DSCC predicts that OLED spending will fall a further 59% as poor mobile OLED fab utilization is still low.

Looking further in 2019, DSCC sees OLED spending to rebound by 111% to $10.9 billion (still quite lower than in 2017) but drop 40% again in 2021 - to only $6.2 billion.

DisplayMate posted an extensive review of the new Samsung Galaxy S10 display - the 6.1" 3040x1440 (550 PPI) flexible AMOLED. SDC's AMOLEDs are excellent displays - and it is not a surprise that DisplateMate found this newest AMOLED to be the best mobile display it ever tested.

DisplayMate says that the new GS10 display outperforms SDC's previous AMOLED models used in the iPhone XS and the Galaxy S9 and Note 9. This year, Samsung concentrated on increasing the picture quality and color accuracy by implementing precision factory display calibration. The Galaxy S10 is the most color-accurate display that DisplayMate have ever tested.

Korea's ETNews reports that Samsung has shipped foldable OLED display samples to both Apple And Google. According to the report, the displays sent to Apple were 7.2" in size (just slightly smaller than the Galaxy Fold OLED display).

This is hardly a surprise - it's highly likely that all smartphone brands are now looking into foldable displays for next generation devices - and all leading brands are also likely to want to design prototypes and start looking at displays.