Sony's OLED TV plans confirmed by LG and the OLED Association

A couple of days ago we reported on an interesting story at Forbes that speculates that Sony may announce an OLED TV lineup at CES 2017, using LGD's panels. Forbes now posted a second article with more details on Sony's OLED TV plans - provided by Barry Young from the OLED Association.

Sony 56-inch OLED TV Prototype, 2014

According to Barry, Sony plans to launch two models - a 55" one and 65" one - and both will support 4K. LGD will start supplying Sony with panels in Q2 2016, and Sony will start shipping those TVs in Q3 or Q4 of 2017.

According to Barry, Sony expects to ship 80,000 55" OLED TVs in 2017 and 120,000 65" ones. The 55" TV will be priced at $1,999 and the 65" will cost $2,999. This is a relatively low entry-point, which means that Sony will not compete in the high-end premium TV range.

Sony is producing its own large-size AMOLED panels, but only for its professional monitor range. For its consumer TVs, it will use LGD panels. OLEDNet reports on a lecture by an LG Economic Research Institute researcher that confirms Sony's entry into the OLED TV market.

Sony actually had a consumer OLED TV program, and used to collaborate with Panasonic on that, but that JV was cancelled in 2013. Since then Sony's TV unit produced and demonstrated several high-end LCDs using innovative technology in an effort to match LG's OLED TV performance. It may be that Sony will focus on LCDs for its higher-end range, but this is likely to change in the future as OLEDs do provide a superior image quality.

Sony currently offers several professional monitors in several sizes (from 7.4" to 30") and in several series. Sony's OLED monitors provide a superior image quality compared to LCDs, and the cost difference is not so large because in these premium products the cost of the panel itself is a small portion of the total product cost. Sony already sold over 15,000 professional OLED monitors, and their latest monitor is the 30" 4K BVM-X300.

LGD's involvement with Sony was reported back in 2013, but was never confirmed - although the company did admit it is in talks with "Japanese TV makers" in 2015. Panasonic released its first OLED TV, the 65" curved 4K TX-65CZ950, in 2015, and in September 2106 the company revealed a 2nd-generation "reference" OLED TV prototype. Both OLED TVs use WRGB panels produced by LG Display.