As Chinese companies develop new technologies to further their OLED production, companies such as China’s BOE has demonstrated a new OLED panel for phones, tablets and laptops that it claims offers improved colour with 95 per cent Rec.2020 coverage.

Although BOE is still not mass-producing OLED TV panels, it is now a fierce competitor to Korea’s LG Display and Samsung Display in the segment for smaller OLED panels.

In Q1 2024, Chinese companies accounted for 53.4 per cent of the global small-to-medium OLED market in units, up from 44.9 per cent in Q4 2023.

During the same period, the share of South Korean companies in the OLED production market fell sharply from 55.1 per cent to 46.6 per cent, according to Sino Research.

While China has crossed Korea in small-to-medium OLED production in the first quarter of this year, Samsung Display still leads the segment with a 41 per cent market share (down from 53.5 per cent last year).

Also, South Korea’s LG Display and Samsung Display continue to dominate within the OLED TV panel production sector.

OLED technology after overtaking LCD in smartphones, tablets and laptops, is now gaining share in TVs and monitors.

As ChannelNews reported last year, Samsung Electronics’ decision to buy OLED panels from LG Electronics was a moved aimed at countering Chinese TV panel brands, and was intended to put pressure on Chinese manufacturers who are currently stripping share in the TV market.

One area where OLED is already well ahead of LCD is in colour, with LG Display’s WOLED slightly above 70 per cent Rec.2020 colour space coverage, Samsung Display’s AMOLED at 70-80 per cent, and Samsung Display’s QD-OLED (TVs) close to 90 per cent.

The Rec.2020 colour space covers significantly more colours visible to the human eye than the old Rec.709 HD-standard colour space and the DCI-P3 cinema colour space.

BOE now claims that its latest OLED panel exceeds 95 per cent Rec.2020 coverage for even more accurate and lifelike colours, while also reducing power consumption by 20 per cent, according to Flatpanels HD.

BOE explained that it is a tandem OLED panel that uses TADF-sensitized (Thermally activated delayed fluorescence) material to combine green superfluorescence and deep red phosphorescence (PHOLED). It appears to still use standard blue fluorescent material.