LG Display announced that it has shipped over 100 million automotive displays. The area of all the displays the company has produced so far is equivalent to around 1.5 million m², or 200 football fields. LG is supplying its automotive displays to Daimler Benz, BMW, Hyundai Motors, Toyota, Honda, Tesla, GM, and more.

LGD is currently producing only LCD automotive displays, but the company has been developing pOLED automotive for many years. LGD now says that it will start producing automotive pOLED displays by the end of Q2 2019, in its 6-Gen E5 flexible OLED line in Gumi, Korea.

According to Reuters Japan Display has signed a deal with Apple to supply OLED screens for Apple's 2019 Watch device. Reuters gets its information from "two sources familiar with the matter".

Apple's 2018 Watch Series 4 uses a 1.57" 394x324 LTPO AMOLED display (1.78" 448x368 on the larger 44mm version). Apple's current exclusive smartwatch display supplier is LG Display.

LG Chem has acquired DuPont's soluble OLED technologies and assets, in a deal estimated at $175 million. LG Chem will receive DuPont's entire soluble OLED IP (540 materials and process patents) and all of DuPont's related equipment and R&D facilities. The deal does not include any assets related to Dupont's evaporation OLED business.

LG Chem believes that the OLED industry is moving towards ink-jet printing of OLED panels based on soluble OLED materials and technologies - and it has now acquired key technologies in this area. DuPont has been developing related materials for over 20 years, has been collaborating with equipment makers (such as Kateeva) and display makers and has also developed its own nozzle-printing process.

Update: ETNews reports that LGD will not quit the lighting market completely, but change its focus to automotive OLED lighting

According to our information (from several sources within the industry), LG Display has decided to quit the OLED lighting market. LG found it difficult to ramp out production in its new OLED lighting fab and from what we understand the future prospects of the business did not seem good enough for the company.

This is very unfortunate news, as LG Display was seen by many as the leading company behind OLED lighting - and the one that could be the "champion" of the technology that will finally enable it to reach mass markets.

Samsung Galaxy Fold, with its inside-folding 7.3" 1536x2152 foldable Infinity Flex AMOLED display, will start shipping in April 2019, for $2,000.

Consumers will undoubtedly be worried about the durability foldable devices. Samsung released the video above that shows how the Galaxy Fold hinge system withstands multiple folding cycles.

DSCC says that OLED market revenues will grow from $26.5 billion in 2018 to $28.7 billion in 2019 and over $52 billion by 2023. The largest application will remain smartphone displays, but several other applications will generate over $1 billion in 2023 - TVs, tablets, notebooks and monitors. By area of production, TV displays will surpass smartphone displays in 2021.

Samsung is still (and will remain so) the dominant AMOLED display producer, even though its market share will drop from 97% in Q1 2018 to 81% in Q4 2019. In Q1 2019 Visionox surpassed LGD to become the 2nd largest AMOLED producer (but most of Visionox's panels are low-end 5.5-inch panels). DSCC expects LGD to regain its number 2 position in the second half of 2019. BOE is the third player and will remain so following its supply agreement with Huawei.