4K OLED: introduction and market status - Page 16

Update: According to a UK magazine, Sony denies pulling out of the OLED TV market

In December 2013 Sony and Panasonic announced that they canceled their OLED TV joint-development effort. The two Japanese companies said they will continue to develop OLED technologies independently. Now the Japanese Nikkei Asian Review reports that Sony decided to halt their OLED TV development to focus on UHD LCDs.

Sony 56-inch OLED TV Prototype

According to the report, Sony does not see any real demand for OLED TVs any time soon. While they may be right in the very near term (1-2 years), this is a very risky decision because if OLED TVs do take off in 2015 or so as Sony will again be too late to the new TV technology (the same mistake they did with LCDs).According to some reports, Sony aims to enter the OLED TV market using LGD panels, a strategy that didn't quite work out for Sony with LCD panels a few years ago.

China's Changhong launched their first OLED TV, the 55Q1A. This TV uses LG Display's curved 55" panel. It's not clear from the info I saw, but it may feature 4K resolution (although it's seems rather unlikely). In any case, the TV is now shipping in China for 48,888 yuan (about $7,800).

Changhong is now China's second OLED TV maker. Just last month Skyworth launched their own 55" curved OLED TV, the TianChi E980. Skyworth also uses OLED panels supplied by LG Display. It's interesting to see LG Display strategy of supplying OLED panels to other companies beside LG Electronics.

Update: I just got word from Gibbys that the TV isn't shipping yet. In addition, they will not ship it to the US, only to Canada.

Canadian retailer Gibbys is now listing LG's 77EC9800 77" curved UHD (3840x2160) OLED TV, for $26,999CAD (that's about $24,600 USD). According to their web site, this huge TV, LG's flagship 2014 model, is now shipping.

LG already launched this TV in Korea last month, and it's great to see it on sale outside of Korea. Even though it's likely that Gibbys is simply importing the TV themselves and this is not an official launch in Canada. In any case it's actually cheaper than we thought - back in January LG said it will cost $29,999.

During a conference in Korea, LG Display's OLED technical strategy team leader Lim Joo-son said that the company's WRGB technology does not place any limits to the size of the OLED TVs they can make, and once the M2 goes into operation, the company will be able to produce 110" TVs.

LG Electronics 77-inch OLED TV prototype

LG also managed to increase the pixel density, and can now produce 8K (7680x4320) panels - but they admit that the smaller aperture in such panels limits the lifetime and they urgently need to develop longer lasting OLED materials.

In April 2013 Sony showed a prototype 30" 4K OLED panels at NAB 2013, promising to release them in 2014. A couple of weeks ago at this year's NAB, Sony showed the panels again, this time as real product prototypes (and not just panels). The company still aims to deliver the 30" OLED monitors in 2014.

The 30" panels ofer 4K (4096x2160) resolution and will be made at Sony's Nagoya fab - the same fab that makes Sony's current 17" and 25" panels. The new product will be very similar to Sony's current PVM X300 4K, but with an OLED instead of the LCD.

LG Electronics introduced their 2014 TV lineup in Korea - unveiling a total of 68 new models. The company will launch 77", 65" and 55" OLED TVs - some of which will feature 4K UHD resolution. The company did not yet announce prices and availability, but they did say that they will start releasing the new TVs in key markets later this month.

Those OLED TVs were already unveiled at CES 2014. Back in January LG said that the 77" curved UHD OLED TV, the 77EC9800, will launch in Q2 2014 for $29,999. It'll be very interesting to know the prices of the 65" and 55" 4K models. Some (or all?) of LG's new OLED TVs will feature a new power reduction technology called Adaptive SVDD - an external compensation technology that decreased the power consumption by 30.6%.

Update: Today Amazon updated the price again, now LG's OLED TV is down to $6,499!

In August 2013 LG launched their 55" FHD curved OLED TVs in the US $14,999. The price kept falling quickly and a couple of months ago LG started offering the 55EA9800 for $8,499. I just found out that without any official word from LG, Amazon are currently offering the TV for only $6,999!. Yes, that's more than a 50% discount from the price only six months ago!

I hope that LG will keep this new low price down. Hopefully when LG's upcoming M2 Gen-8 OLED TV fab starts making panels in a few months, the prices will be reduced even further.

Samsung's Visual Display Business executive VP, HS Kim, says that OLED manufacturing issues have been more significant than previously though, and he expects that it will take 3-4 years before cheap OLED TVs really arrive. In the meantime, Samsung will put more focus on UHD (4K) televisions, and they expect the market to really take off in 2014.

Samsung's rival LG, on the other hand, sees a "rapid shift to OLED technology". We're not sure how rapid is that though, as according to LG the OLED TV market will remain small in 2014 - about 30,000 to 50,000 units globally.

A couple of days ago we reported that Samsung is showing 55" bendable OLED TVs at CES, and today we found this video showing Samsung's flexible OLED TVs in action:

According to the video, those bendable TV prototypes feature UHD (4K) resolution. As a reminder, Samsung is also showing 85" bendable TV prototypes, but those are apparently LCD panels. LG, of course also unveiled a bendable OLED of their own - a 77" 4K one.

Sony and Panasonic recently cancelled their OLED TV joint-development project, so we weren't expecting any OLED TVs from Panasonic at CES (even though they did say they will continue to develop OLED technology alone). So it's a nice surprise to see Panasonic show six 55" curved OLED TV prototypes at CES. Interesting, three of those panels are convex and they all combine to create a long and cool S-shape display:

These are just prototype of course, but apparently the TVs are spectacular. Panasonic's earlier flat 56" 4K Prototypes (unveiled at CES 2013) used AUO produced Oxide-TFT backplanes and Sumitomo's P-OLED materials (deposited in a printing process) and a direct-emission architecture. It's highly likely that these new prototypes are made using the same materials and printing process.