LG OLED company spotlight

OLED is an emerging display technology that uses thin films of organic materials to make efficient, thin and high quality displays. OLED panels can made flexible, rollable and transparent. Korea's LG is at the forefront of OLED development and production - as the world's leading OLED TV producer and a leading developer of flexible OLED for smartphones, wearables, automotive and more. LG's subsidiary LG Display is responsible for OLED R&D and panel production, while LG Electronics produces and markets OLED TVs.

LG OLED TVs

LG Display is the world's leading OLED TV panel producer, and LG Electronics is its largest customer - although LGD also supplies OLED panels to other companies including including Panasonic, Sony, Philips, Loewe, JVC, Hisense, Konka and others. OLED TVs are considered the world's best TVs, offering the best image quality. LG makes a wide range of OLED TV panels, ranging from 42-inch to 97-inch, including bendable solutions and even a rollable 65" TV.

While the basic OLED TV design uses RGB OLED sub-pixels to create each 'pixel' (what is referred to as direct emission OLED, the design used in mobile OLED displays used in Samsung's and Apple's smartphones, for example), LG Display opted for a different OLED TV design. The so-called WRGB (or WOLED-CF) architecture uses four white OLED subpixels with color filters on top (hence W+RBG). The WRGB technology (developed by Kodak and now owned by LG Display) is much easier to produce and scale-up, even though it has some technical disadvantages - and it is the technology that enabled LG to be the first company to actually produce commercial OLED TV panels.

LG Flexible OLEDs

LG currently produces flexible OLEDs (branded as pOLEDs), for both wearable devices and smartphones. LG is the leading supplier of AMOLED displays for Apple's Watch smartwatch and it also supplies OLED displays for smartphones. Click here for more information on LG's pOLED displays and its production capabilities.

Mercedes EQE 350 2022, interior photo

LG is also the world's leading automotive OLED producer, and is already supplying flexible OLEDs to Cadillac, Mercedes, and others.

LG Transparent OLEDs

LG has been working on transparent OLEDs for many years. In 2014 LGD unveiled a 18" transparent OLED prototype, and later in 2016 LGD demonstrated transparent 55" FHD AMOLED display prototypes. In 2019, the company started commercial production of 55" FHD transparent OLEDs, finding small markets in signage, commercial, mobility and more.

 

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The latest LG OLED news:

Seoul Metro installs more transparent OLED based AI translation services throughout the city

Towards the end of 2023, Seoul's Metropolitan Government has initiated a new pilot test at Myeong-dong Station that offers an AI-powered translation service for tourists that enables them to communicate with the subway staff through a transparent 55" LG OLED display.

Transparent OLEDs at Seoul Meyond-dong station

The pilot was successful, and Seoul's Metro expanded the service to 11 stations, throughout Seoul. This is one of the first useful applications of transparent OLED displays, and it is great to see it expanded in Korea. We do not know whether there are any plans to roll out more such displays in Korea.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 16,2024

Samsung's upcoming S90D OLED TV lineup will feature displays utilizing both WOLED QD-OLED panels

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.

Samsung S90D OLED TV photo

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.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 07,2024

LG Display to raise 970 million USD to accelerate its OLED R&D and production expansion

LG Display says it plans to issue new shares, and raise around $970 million USD. The company plans to invest this capital in its OLED business, to meet the demand for advanced displays.

LG 2024 OLED TV range launch image

LG Display's strategic plan is to increase WOLED (large-area) display production by 20% compared to 2023. It also plans to increase its small and medium sized AMOLED business, but it seems LGD has not yet committed to expand production capacity further.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 04,2024

LG Display's WOLED panels receive new low-plastic and eco-friendliness certifications from UL and SGS

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.

Read the full story Posted: Feb 27,2024

Samsung: we sold 1 million OLED TVs in 2023 and had a market share of 22.7% in the OLED TV market

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.

Read the full story Posted: Feb 20,2024

Lian Li shows a prototype motorized gaming desk with a 30-inch transparent OLED display

Taiwan-based PC cases and accessory maker Lian Li is showing a new motorized gaming desk with a built-in  30-inch transparent OLED display.

The DK-07, currently in prototype stage, adopts LG Display's1366x768 transparent WOLED display. The desk is also a PC case. It's not clear what is the use case for the transparent display - the company is saying it can be a secondary display for your computer - and it is also showing a demo in which the transparent OLED displays ocean waves to create a nice effect. The display does not cover the entire desk area, as you can see in the image above.

Read the full story Posted: Feb 17,2024

Samsung and LG to deepen their cooperation on OLED displays and other areas

Samsung and LG have a long history of rivalry, but recently the companies started a surprising collaboration in the OLED industry, when in 2023, Samsung launched its first OLED TV that used WOLED panels produced by LG Display, and recently the company signed a 5-year supply agreement with LGD.

According to recent reports from Korea, this is not an isolated case. The two Korean conglomerates have decided to increase their collaboration in order to increase their competitiveness against rivals, mostly from China. The two companies have formed a "TV alliance", of which the first step is by Samsung to adopt LGD's WOLED panels. LG Display, in return have agreed to use Samsung Display's AMOLED panels in its LG Gram laptop range. This was reported already last year, but we did not know it was part of Samsung's and LG's new strategy of cooperation.

Read the full story Posted: Feb 15,2024

LG Display said to be progressing with its 8.6-Gen IT AMOLED line plans, to announce its plans in H2 2024

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.

LGD P10 OLED fab, Paju Korea (March 2019)

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. 

Read the full story Posted: Feb 14,2024

Samsung Electronics signs a 5-year WOLED supply agreement with LG Display

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.

Samsung S90D OLED TV photo

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. 

Read the full story Posted: Feb 03,2024

Report says Apple reduced its OLED iPad Pro orders by 20-30% due to low expected demand

Earlier this month we reported that Samsung Display and LG Display have started to produce AMOLED displays for Apple's future iPads, to be announced later this year. Earlier expectations were for Apple to order a total of 10 million iPad AMOLED displays in 2024 from both LGD and SDC, with LGD getting around 60% of the orders. 

 

Apple iPad (8th-Gen)

According to a new report, Apple has decided to cut its order size by around 20-30%. Apple will be launching two OLED iPad Pro devices: 11" and 13", and the reduction in orders is for the 13" device, for which LGD is the exclusive supplier, which is why only LGD is effected by the new order cut.

Read the full story Posted: Jan 28,2024