In early 2019 LG announced its first 88" 8K OLED TV panel, the OLED Z9, and the company now finally announced that it's flagship TV is coming to Europe and the US next month.
We do not know the price of the OLED Z9 in Europe or the US, but in Korea the price was set at around $42,000 when LG launched the TV in July.
In early 2019 LG announced its first 88" 8K OLED TV panel, the OLED Z9, and the company now finally announced the pricing and availability of its flagship 2019 OLED TV.
LG Electronics will start accepting pre-orders for the OLED88Z9K in Korea in June. The regular price of the TV is around $42,000 (!) in Korea, but pre-orders will enjoy a discount (to $34,000) and a free air purifier to boot. LG did not disclose when the TVs will actually ship, but it did say that they will go on sale in Europe and the US in Q3 2019 (i.e. July to September).
In early 2019 LG Electronics announced the world's first rollable OLED TV, the 65" Signature OLED TV R and the 88" 8K Z9 OLED TV. Today LGE announced that it plans to start shipping both TVs in the second half of 2019, in Korea. LG did not disclose the price of these two high-end TVs.
The rollable and 88" OLED TVs will be highly expensive - these are high-end premium products. LG Electronics did however say that as it shipped over 4 million OLED TVs since the first one shipped in March 2013, OLED TVs are now "crossing the chasm" and are starting to be adopted by the mainstream market and not only early adopters.
In January 2018 LG Display unveiled its largest OLED TV panel yet - a 88" 8K (7680x4320) display. In early 2019 LG Electronics announced that it will adopt this panel in its upcoming OLED Z9 88" OLED TV. Yesterday in Shanghai at the Appliance & Electronics World Expo 2019 (AWE2019) Skyworth demonstrates its own 88" 8K OLED TV.
We do not have any details on this TV, and whether it is just a prototype or a product that Skyworth aims to launch soon. In any case it turns out that Skyworth already demonstrated this TV at CES 2019, but we failed to report on that. In addition to the large OLED, Skyworth also demonstrated a new OLED TV design which they call waterfall OLED - look at the image below to understand why. It is not clear but it is likely that this is a prototype rollable OLED TV.
UBI Research estimates that the OLED market will reach $32.2 billion in revenues, up from 13.8% from 2018. UBI says the the growth will come from new applications - including foldable smartphone displays, 8K OLED TVs and rollable OLED TVs. Increased yields by Chinese AMOLED makers will also contribute to the growth.
AMOLED revenues in Q4 2018 reached $7.9 billion (down 3.7% from Q3 2018 and 10.4% from Q4 2017). In the whole of 2018, revenues reached $28.3 billion, up 7.1% from 2017 ($26.4 billion). UBI sees the oversupply in the flexible OLED market to continue as high prices prevent adoption in mid-end smartphones.
LG Display had an impressive booth at CES 2019, show off the company's latest display technologies - and most of these were OLED displays, of course. LGD sent us this nice video that shows the main displays at their booth:
The video shows LG's flower OLED installation made up from four curved 65" OLED TV panels, the 88" Crystal-Sound-OLED (CSO) panel with the built-in speaker, LG's new 65" Crystal-Motion OLED (which features an MPTR of 3.5 ms - the world's fastest according to LGD) and finally LG's latest 55" transparent OLED panels.
Update: LG also announces a 65" rollable OLED TV, the Signature OLED TV R
LG Electronics announced its OLED TV lineup for 2019. LG's new OLED TVs will be powered by the company's 2nd-gen Alpha 9 intelligent processor and will offer its ThinQ AI. LG says that the new OLEDs will offer better image quality and sound quality based on the new AI capabilities and new algorithms. All the new TVs will also offer new implementation of Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant.
The top of the range will be the Z9 OLED TV based on LGD's latest large 8K 88" OLED panel. There's a new wallpaper model, the OLED W9, the midrange OLED E9 and the new OLED C9 which is LG's entry level OLED TV model.
LG Display announced the OLED displays it will demonstrate at CES 2019, starting on Tuesday January 8th. We already know that LG Electronics will launch a 88" 8K OLED TV (the OLED Z9) but now LGD says it will demonstrate a 88" Crystal Sound OLED (CSO) panel - which has a sound system built into the panel (which acts as the membrane).
LGD will also unveil a 65" 8K OLED - which you can see in the image above.
According to reports, LG Electronics is set to launch its 8K 88" OLED TV in 2019, and the company will unveil its flagship OLED TV in CES 2019. The 88" TV model number will be OLEDZ9, and like all of LG's 2019 OLED TVs (or at least the high-end ones) it will be based on the company's new Alpha 9 Gen-2 processor and will support HDMI 2.1 and VRR.
According to our information, LG Electronics will also demonstrate its rollable TV at CES (and maybe launch it as a product too) and may also bring its first foldable smartphone to the show as well.
Semiconductor Energy Laboratory (SEL) demonstrated two new OLED display prototypes, both based on the company's proprietary CAAC-IGZO (c-axis aligned crystalline In-Ga-Zn-O) backplane material.
First up is the world's smallest 8K display, a 8.3" OLED (1058 PPI) with a resolution of 7680x4320. The panel is based on a white OLED with color filter architecture.
