Universal display posted their financial results for Q2 2014. Revenues were $64.1 million, including a $25 license payment from SDC (up from $49.9 million in Q2 2013). net profit was $20.4 million.

Material sales reached $35.9 million - $13.2 million from green host sales, $15 million for green emitter sales and $4.4 million for red emitter sales. Sales to LG Display reached $9 million (a little bit lower than in the first quarter). Sales to Samsung were somewhat "soft", but this was offset by sales to other partners.

Samsung first unveiled the wrappable YOUM prototype that you see below in January 2013 - a year and a half ago. While the company is already producing flexible OLEDs, and have adopted one in the Galaxy Round, they have yet to release a product with a display that curves around the edges.

A curved OLED prototype device (Samsung)

According to reports from Korea, Samsung has now begun trial-production of panels that can be wrapped around edges (i.e. with a smaller curvature radius). They are still facing some technical issues with the plastic substrate, so real mass production is not expected soon. But Samsung may release a "technology-demonstrator" product, a limited-volume device just to show off the technology (as they did with the Galaxy Round).

UBI Research says that while the AMOLED market is slated for a modest growth in 2014 (revenues of $10 billion, up from $8.9 billion in 2013), fast growth will resume from 2016 onwards. UBI sees a CAGR growth of 32% from 2016, till revenues reach $46.5 billion in 2020.

UBI says that 2014's revenue growth will be only 10% because both Samsung Display and LG Display delayed OLED investments. Samsung is already constructing its A3 flexible OLED line, and LG Display is also expected to start placing orders for flexible OLED production equipment for their upcoming Gen-6 fab. UBI also expects LGD to start constructing a new OLED TV fab, the M3 line (in addition to the M2 fab which is very close to mass production). So the market is expected to recover its growth in mid 2015.

A couple of months ago, Samsung release the Galaxy S5 LTE-A, that sports the company's latest AMOLED panel - a 5.1" QHD (2560x1440) Super AMOLED. Anandtech posted a long review of this new phone, and they find that the display is actually a little bit more efficient than the 5.1" FHD panel used in the GS5, even though it sports a higher resolution (which usually means a less efficient display as the aperture ratio gets smaller.

Anandtech further says that Samsung told them they switched to a new, improved emitter material for the new QHD panel, which explains the increased efficiency. This is interesting as the QHD display was released only a few months after Samsung started producing the FHD panel, which by itself was 27% more efficient than the previous generation panels - also due to more efficient OLED materials.

Samsung just sent press invitation to their Unpacked 2014 Episode 2 event, which will take place on September 3rd. It's highly likely that the Galaxy Note 4 will be announced during the event (they even say "note the date").

As always before a major Samsung launch, we heard several reports (rumors?) regarding this device. Last month SamMobile claimed to have exclusive info detailing a QHD (2560x1440) AMOLED panel. On the same day, the Korea Times reported that Samsung will actually unveil two Note 4 variants - on with a regular flat display, and another with a curved one. A month earlier, a senior VP at Samsung Electronics said that the Note 4 will have a "new form factor".

A few days ago, LG launched the 55EC9300 55" curved FHD OLED TV in the US, an upgrade to the original 55EA9800. The official price was $6,999 - while online stores offered it for pre-orders for $3,999 to $4,999. LG quickly lowered the price, though, and Amazon now offers it for $3,499 - only $200 more than the 55EA9800. 

The EC9300 features a faster refresh rate (240 Hz) compared to the 2013 model, and it's brighter, too (500 cd/m² vs 350 cd/m²). LG also changed the TV's design and the TV is now based on LG's new smart TV platform (WebOS). The EC9300 weighs 14.38 Kg without the stand.

A few days ago Samsung released their financial results for Q2 2014. While it wasn't a good quarter for Samsung, OLED increasing slightly driven by new high-end smartphones, and SDC is increasing AMOLED sales to mid-range phones. During the company's conference call, some more interesting information was revealed.

Samsung's head of IR says that while OLED sales improved compared to the previous quarter, the improvement was less than Samsung's expectation. Samsung actually expects that it will be challenging to improve OLED profits because of SDC's main customers (mostly Samsung Electronics itself, actually) "continuous reduction of panel inventory and product mix change to increase offerings of mid-end products". Supplying to lower-range products may mean lower margins for SDC.

Last month Oculus started to ship their second-gen (DK2) development kits - for over 40,000 pre-order customers. Those Gen-2 devices switched the 7" LCD used in the first-generation headsets to newer AMOLED panels. Back when they unveiled the DK2, Oculus explained that they wanted a low persistence display, as it makes an incredible difference. Oculus said that their OLED runs much faster than any other OLED panel on the market.

It was always assumed the panel maker was SDC (they even announced a co-development effort later on), but the actual display was unknown. Today iFixit posted a teardown of the DK2, and it turns out that the display is the same 5.7" FHD Super AMOLED panel used in the Galaxy Note 3 (you can see it in the lower-left part of the image above). In fact, Oculus uses the exact module, with the touch-controller in tact and the camera holes and all.