LG Display recently upgraded their OLED TV production capacity to 14,000 Gen-8 panels in a month, which will enable them to produce around 600,000 TVs in 2015. A company official told CNet that they currently cannot meet the demand for OLED TVs, and they "cannot build OLED TVs fast enough".
LG currently sees OLED as a way to gain brand perception - as "OLED equals LG equals great televisions". It seems the company is not in a rush to reduce prices as they want to have a premium price and perception for their OLED TV range, which also explains why they are currently focusing on 4K OLEDs and not FHD ones.
If this is true, it's likely that we will not see massive OLED price drops in the near future. In the past the prices of OLED TVs dropped quickly - to the point that LG's 55EA9800 OLED TV (2013 FHD model) is selling for only $1,999. To compare, the new 55EG9600 curved 55" 4K OLED TV (2015 model) will cost $5,499 when it launches soon.
LGD will further expand their capacity to 34,000 monthly substrates by the end of 2015, which will enable them to produce around 1.5 million panels in 2016, and hopefully reduce prices further.
Comments
You put it as if they might produce a FHD model again at some point. With all the 4K hype and the apparent consumer acceptance I doubt it will happen.
As for the price drops... Ah, come on. Of course they won't announce price drops in advance when they want to sell freshly released units for a premium price...
Now it is pretty clear, why Samsung want to return to OLED, even without their RGB design. By dropping OLED they made strategic mistake.
And Start making Oled Computer monitors...!
whining for nothing..
I don't see it that way. Samsung accurately saw that LG was getting into the OLED TV game too early and that the technology wasn't ready. LG paid a high price for that, although it is now being rewarded for its diligence with a market-leading position.
Now that OLED and the associated backplane technologies are capable of producing TV-sized panels with reasonable manufacturing yield, Samsung sees the time is right to get back into this game.
I don't see this as a mistake at all.
The low-middle class consumer can't complain.
It's the natue of the game... buy and lock patents, suck the most money for the longest time.
Good for them.