Cho Soo-in, Samsung Mobile Display's CEO says that there my be strong competiton from Japanese and Chinese companies in the OLED TV market - and this may prove a great challenge for Korean companies. Japanese companies still have a competitive edge in key sources and OLED materials - which could prove an advantage for Japanese display makers.
He is also wary of Chinese makers - as he sees OLED products coming out of China in 2013. China is reportedly "vowing to join the OLED race" - the government is providing financial support for Chinese firms. Apparently Samsung does not plan to produce OLEDs in China - for fear of a technology leak - "Korea is the only country in the world that can fully handle OLED screens" according to Cho.
OLED makers in China include Visionox, Shanwei Truly, Sichuan CCO and Irico. Both Shanghai Tianme and Irico are in the process of building new AMOLED fabs. There are reports that BOE Display are planning a $3.5 billion 5.5-Gen fab, but we're not sure if this is for real.
LG Display's CEO Han Sang-beom made an interesting comment regarding their OLED TV panels: LG's OLED screens are also receiving more attention from existing customers that possibly include Sony. This wasn't confirmed by Sony. Earlier in February we reported about rumors that LG Display is indeed in talks with Sony to supply OLED panels. It's unlikely that this will happen in the close future as LG Display does not have enough capacity - they can currently produce only around 48,000 panels in a month. Sony's new CEO has plans to make a major investment in OLED TV production, but it may be that in the meantime the company is considering buying panels from LGD.
