Today we published new versions of our Automotive and Flexible OLED market reports. OLED-Info provides comprehensive niche OLED market reports, and our reports cover everything you need to know about the niche market, and can be useful if you want to understand how the OLED industry works and what this technology can provide for your own industry. The reports are now updated to March 2015.

The Flexible OLED Market Report:

• Why flexible displays and lighting panels are so exciting
• What kind of flexible displays are currently on the market
• What the future holds for flexible OLEDs
• How to acquire flexible OLEDs for your products

The report package provides a good introduction to the flexible OLED market - present and future. It details both flexible displays and lighting technologies. Read more here!

As expected, Apple officially launched their Watch wearable device yesterday. While the company revealed the release date (April 24) and prices (starts at $350), they did not reveal any more details on the display - all we know officially is that it is a flexible retina display.

It's been pretty much confirmed that it uses a flexible OLED display produced exclusively by LG Display (although reports suggest Apple is in talks with SDC to supply displays for the next-gen Watch). I guess we'll have to wait till the Watch is shipping to finally confirm it is an OLED made by LGD.

LG Display's CEO, Han Sang-Beom, says that LG Display is in talks with companies in China, Japan and the US with an aim to establish an OLED TV alliance. He did not specify any details regarding the proposed alliance.

LG Display already supplies OLED TV panels to several companies in China (including Skyworth, Changhong, Haier, Konka and KTC) and is also collaborating with Panasonic and Grundig. LG Display has been in talks with Sony and Panasonic to supply OLED panels since at least January 2013.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) awarded two small-business SBIR Phase-2 projects targeting advances in solid-state lighting technology, and both projects deal with OLED lighting technologies.

The first project, led by Pixelligent Technologies is titled "Advanced Light Extraction Material for OLED Lighting". Pixelligent, in collaboration with OLEDWorks, will demonstrate a new internal light extraction structure for OLED lighting panels, that is fully compatible with current manufacturing processes and operating conditions. The ILE structure is cost-effective and offers a high high refractive index.

One of the latest buzz words in the TV industry is HDR - High Dynamic Range. HDR video captures images with an expanded brightness range - darker shadows and brighter whites. An HDR TV will need to be able to display a wider range of brightness levels compared to a regular TV, and so the maximum brightness of any pixel needs to be higher - about 1,000 nits (compared to about 400 nits as the brightest pixel in a regular TV).

One of the challenges with OLED displays is making them bright enough, and usually LCDs offer a brighter image (although for mobile devices, the latest OLEDs are actually brighter than the best LCDs). LG seems to be confident that they can solve this issue, and during a press event in the UK company officials promised that LG will unveil an HDR OLED TV in Q3 2015 - around the time of the IFA 2015 exhibition in Berlin.

Philips posted a 50-minutes video presentation discussing OLED lighting and the company's technology, products and projects:

Philips, one of the clear leaders in OLED lighting, recently announced its intention to spin-off its OLED unit, and the company is searching for a buyer for its whole OLED business activity.

DisplaySearch estimates that 77,000 OLED TVs were sold worldwide in 2014, generating $280 million in revenue. Most of these TVs, of course were sold by LG Electronics. DisplaySearch says that in 2013 only about 4,500 OLED TVs were sold (so the market grew 17-fold in terms of units, and 5.5-fold in terms of revenue - as prices dropped sharply).

DisplaySearch breaks down sales by quarter - 4,600 units in Q1 2014, 13,500 in Q2, 16,900 in Q3 and 42,400 in Q4. DisplaySearch also details sales by region: 30.7% were sold in Western Europe, 18.4% in Asia and the Pacific regions, 18.4 in North America, 11.1% in China, 8.7% in Easter Europe , 8.2% in the Middle East and Africa and 5% in South America.

During the Mobile World Congress last week, Blackberry unveiled a prototype phone that has a curved display - similar to the Galaxy S6 Edge one. Besides the touch display, the new prototype also has a slider keyboard.

Blackberry did not reveal anything regarding this phone or when they plan to release it. But it's great to see them try out what is undoubtedly a flexible OLED display for a future phone, and it's interesting to know that either Samsung Display or LG Display is supporting Blackberry with such a display.

Last week Samsung announced their next flagship phones, the Galaxy S6 and its curved-display variant the Galaxy S6 Edge. Now Samsung reports that they already recieved 20 million orders for the new phones - 15 million for the S6 and 5 million for the S6 Edge. Note that these orders are from mobile carriers, not from final customers.

Following the disappointing sales of the Galaxy S5, Samsung really needs these new phones to succeed, and the focus in these new models was on look and feel - of both the hardware and the software. Samsung says that the response to the S6 is "far better" than it was for the S5.

According to reports from Japan, LG Chem is planning to construct a new production line for OLED lighting by 2017. According to the reports, LG Chem will commit 200 billion Korean Won ($185 million) towards this new fab, which will increase its production capacity and will lower prices dramatically.

LG Chem started discussing the Gen-5 line back in 2012 (and the plan was to build it by 2015), but hopefully this time the company will actually execute the expansion plan. The OLED Association says that LG Chem has seen great advances in panel performance, cost reduction, production yields and in-house material adoption, and the company executives believes now is the time to increase capacity and finally start mass producing OLED panels.