OLED TV: Introduction and Industry News - Page 4

According to reports from Korea, LG Display requested Samsung Electronics to use its WOLED panels on the same tier as SDC's QD-OLED panels, and Samsung will use both panel technologies in its S90D OLED TV series. Samsung will likely not disclose the actual panel technology to the consumer, and will likely decide on the panel technology per region.

The Samsung S90D will offer 42-, 48-, 55-, 65-, 77- and 83-inch panels. SDC only makes 55, 65, and 77-inch QD-OLED panels, and so in these sizes both QD-OLEDs and WOLEDs will be used. For the 42-, 48- and 83- models Samsung will only use WOLEDs.

LG Display says that its WOLED TV and gaming displays have been awarded UL's low-plastic verification, given to products in which the plastic usage accounts to less than 5% of their total weight.

LGD says that its 65-inch OLED TV panel contains about 4% plastic content, about 905 lower than to a 65" LCD panel. In addition, by substituting key components with easily recyclable materials, LG Display has increased the recyclability of parts to as high as 92.7% at disposal.

Samsung announced that in 2023 it retained its market-leading position in the TV mraket, with a 30.1% market share (revenues). The company also disclosed that it sold 1.01 million OLED TVs in 2023 - mostly QD-OLED TVs, and some WOLED TVs as well.

Samsung quotes Omdia saying that it had a 22.7% market share in the OLED TV Market (by revenue), which is pretty impressive, as the company is relatively very new to this market.

According to recent rumors, LG Display has decided to go ahead and build its 8.6-Gen (2250 x 2600 mm) IT AMOLED line, in Paju, Korea (at its P10 hub, which was originally planned for OLED TV production). The company recently started to conduct discussions with equipment makers for supply agreements.

LG Display's plan is to officially announce its 8.6-Gen production line plans in the second half of the year, and start ordering equipment. It is likely that the capacity of the fab will be between 7,500 to 15,000 monthly substrates. LG will be using its P10 building and existing equipment (backplane deposition) to reduce the costs of the 8.6-Gen line. This will mean that there will be delays to LG's WOLED TV panel capacity expansion plans. 

In July 2023, Samsung Electronics officially launched the 83" 83S90C, the company's first TV to use LG's WOLED panels, following several years of negotiations and hesitation by the Korean rivals. Samsung then continued to launch more WOLED TVs, but did not made large orders, as it mainly uses QD-OLED panels from SDC for its high-end TVs.

According to a new report, Samsung Electronics has signed a five-year WOLED supply agreement with LG Display. This is an interesting development that may have implications for Samsung Display's QD-OLED production plans. We do not have more details, it will be interesting to learn what kind of volumes Samsung committed to. 

LG Display announced its financial results for Q4 2023, with an operating profit of almost $100 million - after 7 quarters of losses. LGD says that demand for both its smartphone displays and WOLED panels (TVs and monitors) has increased. OLED revenues amounted to 57% of the company's total revenues during the quarter. 

LG Display says that it expects market volatility to continue in 2024, due to prolonged unstable macroeconomic conditions. The company will be "strengthening the competitiveness of its OLED businesses", and it expects OLED panel shipments to grow 20% in 2024 compared to 2023. In the upcoming Q1 2024 quarter analysts expected earnings to weaken due to low seasonal demand.

During CES 2024, many device makers announced new laptops, monitors and TVs that use OLED displays. Here's a list of all these new devices:

• MSI Monarch 13 laptop (13.3" 2.8K AMOLED)
• LG OLED B4, C4, G4, M4 (WOLED TVs)
• Samsung Odyssey G9 monitor (49" 5120x1440 240Hz QD-OLED)
• Samsung Odyssey G8 / G6 monitors (27" 1440p 360Hz / 32" 4K 240Hz QD-OLED)
• Razer Blade 16 2024 laptop (16" 2560x1600 240Hz SDC AMOLED)
• Dell 2024 XPS 13 / 14 / 16 laptops (16" 90Hz 4K / 14.5" 120Hz 3200x2000 / 13.4" 2880x1800 60Hz AMOLED)
• Acer Predator X34 X / X39 monitors (4" / 39" 3440x1440 240Hz OLED)
• LG Signature OLED T (77" 4K wireless transparent WOLED TV)
• Samsung S95D, S90D, S85D (QD-OLED and WOLED TVs)
• Gigabyte AORUS 2024 QD-OLED monitors (27", 31.5", 34" QD-OLEDs)
• Acer 2024 Swift 14 X / Swift Go 14 / Swift Go 16 laptops (14" / 16" AMOLEDs)
• Panasonic Z93A, Z95A (WOLED TVs)
• HP Omen Transcend 32 gaming monitor (32" 240Hz 4K QD-OLED)
• Dell Alienware AW2725DF / AW3225QF monitors (27", 32" QD-OLEDs)
• HP 2024 Spectre x360 14 laptop (14" AMOLED)

Samsung Electronics announced its 2024 OLED TV lineup, with 3 series. The company's flagship OLED TV for 2024, the S95D, offers 55-, 65-, or 77-inch 4K 144hz QD-OLED panels, offering high brightness (up to 3000 nits peak brightness), a new anti-glare coating to minimize reflections, Tizen 8.0 OS, and an external One Connect box for a sleek design. The S95D offers AI-Enhanced color accuracy - validated by Pantone.

Samsung also announced two more series - S90D and S85D. Interestingly, it did not detail whether these TVs use QD-OLED (produced by SDC) or WOLED panels (produced by LGD) - or a mix as it did last year within the same series. 

LG Display announced that it has developed its 2nd generation Multi-Lens Array (MLA) technology, branded as META Technology 2.0.  The company demonstrated a 83" META 2.0 OLED TV panel, during CES 2023. The company will apply this technology to several of its 2024 OLED TVs, ranging in size from 55-inch to 88". 

META 2.0 WOLED panels achieve a peak brightness of 3,000 nits - a 42% improvement over the company's conventional panels. LGD explains that META 2.0 includes a pattern of optimized micrometer-scale lenses with an optimized lens angle, an upgraded "brightness enhancing algorithm" called META Multi Booster, and a full-range brightness detail enhancing algorithm called Detail Enhancer. All of these new technologies, combined, makes for a META 2.0 panel. In a 77-inch 4K panel, there are 42.4 billion micro lenses (!).

LG Electronics formally announced it latest OLED TV, its 2024 range. The company introduced several new features: 144Hz refresh rate on most of the models, a new image processor and Chromecast support. LG did not yet disclose the pricing or shipping dates for the 2024 OLED TVs.

The 2024 OLED TV range starts with the OLED B4 series (no 60Hz A series this year), that offers 48-, 55-, 65-, and 77-inch options, 120Hz 4K resolution, an Alpha 8 image processor, webOS 24 and built-in Chromecast. The OLED C4 improves over the B4 with 144Hz refresh rates an Alpha 9 Gen-7 image processor. The C4 is available in 42-, 48-, 55-, 65-, 77- and 83-inch options.