CES 2022 which ChannelNews will be at, is shaping up to be a battle ground for LG and Samsung as both Companies bail out of the LCD display panel market instead both are now fighting it out for dominance in the premium OLED TV market currently dominated by LG.
Samsung Electronics has begun mass production of organic light-emitting diode displays OLED panels a technology that has been dominated and owned by archrival LG Electronics with new models set to be shown at CES.
Samsung’s quantum dot displays use a different technology than LG who has more than 80% market share in large OLED panels that are also used by Sony and Loewe for their premium TV’s
This week Samsung Display celebrated its first shipment of TV displays out of its Asan campus in central South Korea which is where their new Quantum Dot TV’s will be manufactured with the move by the two big brands to compete head on in the OLED market tipped to drive down prices.
LG and Samsung dominate the global OLED market, with LG focusing on larger TV panels, and Samsung on smaller displays for smartphones and other devices used by the likes of Apple in their iPhones.
Samsung holds roughly 14% of the market for large OLED panels, though mostly for computers, making this its first full-fledged foray into OLEDs for TVs.
Its TV displays feature a QD layer made of tiny semiconductor crystals, which change the wavelength of the blue light given off by the organic compounds to produce green and red.
This technology is said to produce more vivid colours than OLEDs that use colour filters to change white light, such as LG’s panels.
Samsung claims that their new production lines can produce 30,000 8.5-generation panels a month, or enough for 180,000 55-inch TVs.
Samsung has also announced plans to invest $14 billion into research and development and mass production of QD displays.
It plans to launch new high-end TVs using QD displays as early as the spring of 2022.
Sony Group has also expressed an interest in using Samsung’s QD display, a move that could hurt LG if the Samsung offering proves to be cost effective and popular with both retailers and consumers.
Sony is currently testing out the technology and is negotiating a potential deal with Samsung, sources claim.
OLED TVs typically cost about twice as much as LCD models and are still a relatively small market.
About 98% of the 230 million TVs shipped worldwide in 2020 were equipped with LCDs, according to U.S.-based Display Supply Chain Consultants.
Only 10% of the $34.4 billion OLED panel market in 2020 went into TVs, DSCC data shows.
But increased competition from Samsung could help drive down OLED TV prices, making them a more popular option.
Meanwhile, LG has been ramping up production of smaller OLED panels, a field where Samsung holds 70% market share.
