LG announced that it is starting to ship its 88" 8K flagship OLED Z9 TV in the US, with a price of $29,999. The OLED88Z9 is based on LG's 2nd-gen Alpha 9 intelligent processor the enables LG's ThinQ AI to offer new display algorithms and Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant.

The Signature OLED Z9 features HDMI 2.1 which enables high frame rate (HFR) support, enhanced audio return channel (eARC), variable refresh rate (VRR) and automatic low latency mode (ALLM). LG's flagship OLED also feature Dolby Atmos for immersive entertainment.

Yesterday Apple announced its 2019 iPhone and Watch Lineup - with all the devices but one with OLED displays. We'll start with the iPhone 11 Pro which uses a 5.8" notch-type 2436x1125 (458 PPI) AMOLED display and features Apple's latest A13 Bionic chip, 64/256/512GB of storage, a triple camera setup, HDR, FaceID - and is water and dust resistant.

The iPhone 11 Pro Max is quite similar, but it offers a bigger display - a 6.5" 2688x1242 AMOLED (same PPI - 458). Both phones will ship on September 20. The iPhone 11 Pro starts at $999 while the iPhone 11 Pro Max starts at $1,099.

In July 2019 Japan's government decided to restrict some material exports to South Korea, following a diplomatic tension between the two countries. One of the materials Japan restricted is hydrogen fluoride which is used in OLED production as an etching gas and cleaning fluid.

According to a new report in Korea, as the OLED industry does not require an extremely high purity hydrogen fluoride and LG has been able to quickly find a source for this gas in Korea. It already started to use the Korean material in production - and aims to source 100% of its hydrogen fluoride from Korean vendors.

IHS Markit says that the global OLED smartphone market totaled $3.8 billion in Q2 2019. The top producer was Samsung Display had a market share of 82% ($3.15 billion in revenues).

The second largest OLED smartphone maker is China's BOE Display that had a 12% market share ($456 million in revenues). BOE experienced very vast growth - its market share in Q4 2018 was only 4% and in Q1 2019 it was 9%.

In early 2019 LG Electronics announced the world's first rollable OLED TV, the 65" Signature OLED TV R. The company later announced that it will ship the TV in the second half of 2019, but now LG is delaying the launch of its signature rollable OLED TV.

LG says that the OLED TV R will ship in Korea in "2019 or 2020", but that consumers elsewhere will have to wait longer - which probably means it does not have any plans to release it before 2021. According to TechRadar, the main reason is that LG is highly expensive and LG fears that it will be difficult to find a market outside of Korea for such a premium TV.

Panasonic has been showing transparent OLED display prototypes and concepts since 2016, and in April 2019 the company unveiled its latest prototype - a wooden cabinet design:

At IFA 2019 Panasonic says that it aims to launch a transparent OLED display by next year as a commercial product. It is highly likely that this would be some kind of signage/commercial display.

A Federal Court in Australia ordered LG Electronics to pay a fine of $160,000 AUD to two consumers after LG refused to repair, replace or refund OLED TVs that exhibited burn in after less than a year of use.

Under the Australian law, consumers who purchased faulty products are entitled to a repair, refund or replacement - even if the warranty does not apply or has come to an end. The two OLED TVs were bought in 2013.

Sony announced two new high-brightness OLED microdisplays, the ECX336C and ECX335S. Both new microdisplays offer up a brightness of up to 3,000 cd/m² - these are Sony's most bright OLED microdisplays ever (the previous ones were up to 1,000 cd/m²).

The ECX336C is a 0.23" nHD+ (640x400) microdisplay while the ECX335S is a new model of Sony's 0.7" Full-HD (1920x1080) display. Both will enter mass production in Q1 2020.

In January 2019 during CES Skyworth demonstrated a 88" 8K (7680x4320) OLED TV prototype, in addition to other OLED technologies. We have posted a photo of the Skyworth 88" OLED, but today this nice video from our friend Charbax was published that shows Skyoworth's CES booth, starting with the 88" OLED:

The TV uses a 88" 8K pane made by LG Display, as used in its own OLED Z9 OLED TV which is now entering the market.

Philips announced its 2019/2020 TV range, with three OLED TVs at the top of its line. All of Philips' new OLED TVs support Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and all feature its Ambilight surround LED Lighting feature. All the TVs use LGD's WRGB OLED TV panels, of course.

Philips' entry-level 2019-2020 OLED TV is the OLED+754, which features a 55" or 65" panel and are based on the Saphi Smart TV platform which includes built-in Alexa support. The OLED+754 is now shipping in Europe, the price in the UK is £1,500 for the 55" model and £2,300 for the 65" model.