Samsung: cheap OLED TVs are still 3-4 years away

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.

Even though OLED TV prices are expected to drop in the next few years (as production processes get more efficient and larger production lines are constructed) it was always assumed that OLED TVs will only be able to compete with LCDs in 2015-2016 or so. So this isn't really news from Samsung. It's a slight delay - HS Kim says the he previously estimated that cheap OLED TVs will arrive within 2-3 years.

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Posted: Jan 12,2014 by Ron Mertens

Comments

Most probably, it is due to the approach taken by Samsung (LTPS and shadow mask).