Is Samsung Electronics decision to buy OLED panels from LG Electronics set to be the savior of LG Display and a pain in the backside for Chinese TV panel brands, , as the two cuddle up to each other in a rare unity move, that will put pressure on Chinese manufacturers who are currently stripping share in the TV market.
The rare alliance between the two South Korean powerhouse technology Companies has analysts now tracking whether the Samsung brand which is known for premium TV’s will suffer.
LG Display is struggling despite having a lead in the manufacture of OLED panels.
Back in July 2023, the business reported their fifth consecutive quarterly loss as sluggish demand for smartphones, TVs and computers took a toll on its bottom line.
The major panel maker reported an operating loss of US$689 million for the April-June period, compared with a loss of 488.3 billion won a year earlier.
LG Display went into a deficit in the second quarter of last year, for the first time in two years, as a pandemic-driven boom in IT devices ended amid rising prices and interest rates.
Earlier this month ChannelNews reported that Samsung’s new large 4K TVs were using LG OLED panels.
The 83-inch TV is the first product of the newly forged partnership which some analysts claim could result in LG Display losses being turned around, as the two South Korean powerhouses take on Chinese brands such as TCL,
Nikki Asia claims that White OLED, or WOLED now being used in Samsung TV’s, is a type of display in which a base white light in each pixel is also shined through red, green and blue filters to create a full spectrum of colors. Panasonic and Sony OLED displays also use technology sourced from LG.
Traditional OLED, favored by Samsung, consists of pixels separated into the three colors of red, green and blue, with no filtering.
While LG focused on WOLED displays, Samsung once derided them as inferior to its traditional OLED panels.
However, Samsung struggled to control the quality of its large OLED panels for TVs and was unable to sufficiently improve their cost competitiveness, despite the company’s overwhelming share of the market for small displays for smartphones.
Now Samsung has thrown the towel in and conceded that the LG Display offering merits being a key part of a Samsung premium TV offering.
For Samsung, procuring panels from LG means publicly acknowledging the company’s technical capabilities — akin to conceding defeat in their technological rivalry.
Both Companies realize that the relationship has merit due to the rise of China and a host of Companies now manufacturing premium panels.Many of the Chinese display manufacturing Companies such as BOE, China Star Optoelectronics Technology and Visionox are being propped by money from the Chinese Communist Governments.
Between them Samsung and LG Electronics have combined global market share in finished TVs of around 45% and they are now looking to grow that share by working together to create superior panels.
The unlock key is utilization rates for their panel factories and if the two can lift production cost effectively they have a chance to hurt the Chinese Companies claim observers.
