During a display seminar in Korea, Park Won-sang, SDC's principal engineer, said that the company is expecting VR and AR applications to increase demand for high-end OLED displays. Park says that smartphone-based VR device shipments will grow to 66 million units in 2017, up from 4 million units in 2013 (this data originates from ABI Research).
VR and AR technology demands very high-end displays, and OLEDs are seen as the ideal technology - as it features high response time and better contrast compared to LCD displays. The biggest challenge, according to Park, is the power consumption that needs to be increased to enhance the AR and VR experience.
According to the Korea Herald an LG engineer at the same seminar estimated that LG Display is about five years behind samsung in the development of OLED displays for VR applications.
SDC is indeed the leader in VR OLED displays - and the company supplies panels for Oculus, Sony, HTC and OSVR. LG is not yet present in this market, but AU Optronics is making inroads with its new 3.8" 10280x1200 90Hz VR display. For more information on the AR and VR OLED markets, check out our market report.
