LG Display

LG Display announced that its entire lineup of OLED TV and monitor panels, from 27 to 97 inches (all of its WOLED panels), have become the world’s first displays to receive Eyesafe Circadian Certification. LG Display’s OLED TV and monitor panels achieved the highest circadian certification rating (CPF 50).

EyeSafe, a US-based company specializing in blue light mitigation solutions, says that LG's OLED panels are promoting eye health and better sleep, as the emit just 36% blue light, the lowest in the industry.

OLED TVs offer excellent image quality, outperforming LCDs with superb contrast, excellent and vivid color reproduction and fast refresh rates. In addition, OLEDs enable thin and efficient TVs. OLED TV production has been increasing up until a year ago, reaching a potential capacity of around 10 million units. This is impressive, but considering the entire global TV market that amounts to around 250 million units, OLEDs represent only around 2.5% of the total market (it is important to note that OLEDs tend to be produced in large sizes and carry a much higher average selling price compared to LCDs).

But OLED TV production capacity growth has declined in recent years. In this article we will shortly detail the history of OLED TV production, and look at potential paths towards increased penetration in the future. More details and into the future of OLED technologies and OLED TVs is included in the OLED Toolbox.

A bit of history: in 2013, both Samsung and LGD started producing OLED TV panels. Samsung chose the straightforward RGB side-by-side architecture, in which there are three sub-pixels, with red, green and blue OLED emitters. LG chose its own WRGB (or WOLED) architecture (the IP was acquired from Kodak in 2009) which uses four white OLED subpixels (made from yellow and blue OLED subpixels). Both companies released 55" FHD OLED TVs, priced at over $10,000 per unit. It soon became clear that Samsung's approach was not scalable, while LGD managed to enter mass production quickly and reduce prices dramatically within a few years to compete with the dominant LCD TV technology.

LG Electronics is going to add screensaver ads to its TVs, including its high-end OLED TV range. It seemed the company has already started testing this new feature, which shows full-screen ads, and the company will offer a way to turn the ads off, as it markets the new ad system a "feature".

LG Ad Solutions company announced the new "Native Screensaver Ads" feature, that "capitalizes on idle screen time, turning what may be perceived as a period of downtime into a valuable engagement opportunity".

The Chairman of the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, John Moolenaar, sent a letter to the US Secretary of Defense, saying that the US should place both BOE and Tianna on the DoD 1260H blacklist as Chinese military companies.

In his letter, Mr. Moolenaar says that by using government support, the Chinese has taken over the display industry, and are already leading both the LCD and OLED markets (which is indeed mostly true). As these two companies have close ties to the Chinese government and military, this, according to the letter, poses a big risk to US and its allies.

As we reported last month, TCL CSoT officially announced that it has agreed to buy LG Display's last LCD production line in Guangzhou, China, for $1.5 billion (10.8 billion Yuan). 

TCL CSoT will acquire 80% of LG Display's 8.5-Gen LCD production line, and 100% of its LCD module line in Guangzhou. The two companies plan to complete the deal by the end of March 2025. LG's LCD production line has a capacity to produce 180,000 TV panels per month, most of these sized 55" and up (about 6% of the total LCD panel market), and had a net profit of $85 million last year over $900 million in revenues. The module factory can produce 2.3 million units per month. The two factories serve customers such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Skyworth, and more. 

Earlier this year LG Display started producing its 30-inch 1366*768 transparent OLED panels. China-based CEOLED are now offering a monitor based on this panel.

The monitor offers a brightness of 600 nits (peak), a 0.1 ms response time, and HDMI, DP, Dc and USB interfaces. The lifetime of LG's 30-inch transparent WOLED is quoted at 30,000 hours. Contact us if you're interested in this monitor, or in other solutions based on LG's range of transparent OLED displays (30-inch, 55-inch and soon 77-inch) or BOE's transparent OLEDs.

According to reports from Japan, Apple decided to adopt a 6.1" AMOLED display for its upcoming iPhone SE 4 smartphone, which will mean that all of the company's smartphone products will be based on OLED displays.

We actually reported this in March 2024, and back then it was suggested that Apple's target price was $25 for the OLED display - which was too low for Samsung Display that decided not to continue with its discussions with Apple. Back then it was estimate that BOE will supply the majority of the displays, and some orders will go to Tianma. According to the new report, the second supplier is actually LG Display.

LG Display announced that it has started to mass produce its 26.5-inch 480Hz QHD (2560x1440) Gaming OLED panel. This is the world's first 480hz OLED panel, and it offers a 0.02 ms response time, and it is equipped with LG's MLA technology to ehance the light output.

A few weeks ago Acer announced its Predator X27U F3 monitor, that is based on LG's 480Hz OLED, and it's likely that this monitor will start shipping soon.

UBI Research estimates that 12 million OLED tablet panels will ship in 2024, and increase of over 500% from 2023 (1.84 million units), following Apple's adoption of OLEDs in its iPad Pro devices for the first time.

UBI sees the tablet OLED display market continuing to grow, and is expected to reach 30 million units in 2028. The current market leaders are Samsung Display and LG Display, but other display makers are also targeting this market, with BOE aiming to ship 1.5 million OLED tablet panels in 2024, and Visionox around 800,000 units.

According to reports, Meta has decided to cancel one of its VR projects that was planned for 2027. This device was to be a high-end product, similar to Apple's Vision Pro - with a similar high price tag. Following the poor market reaction for Apple's Vision Pro, Meta decided to scrap the project.

The original Oculus Rift

Meta was planning to use OLED microdisplays in its upcoming high-end headset, as these are the best performing displays for such products. It is reported that one of the reasons that Meta is not proceeding with its project is the high price of the OLEDs. These are expensive displays indeed - according to some estimates, Apple is paying $350 for each display, which means around $700 for each headset. On the other hand, it is estimated that OLED microdisplay prices are set to drop sharply in the near future as new capacity comes online, and new players (including Samsung and LGD) start producing displays.