With the Google’s comments in 2015 that the new IoT era is coming, the 13th China International Display Conference started with the presentation of BOE, a large Chinese display company, with the topic of the era of smart interfaces to be developed in the future.
News about when, where, what size of new investments emerge from Samsung display who leads Recent Small and Medium-sized OLED Market and LG display who leads large OLED market should come true are continuously main news in Display industry. In the middle, Maybe, publics who are invovled in industry, are interested in watching when will China’s panel companies who are processing on construction of flexible OLED line supported by government between Korea narrows the technology gaps.
OLED is advantageous for miniaturization and light weight because it is a self-emitting display with no need of back light; it is applied to various HMD devices such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Sony PS VR for its fast response.
In the premium TV market, price competition is on the rise. The basic premium TV models (55 inch, 65inch, flat type) such as QN55Q7F and QN65Q7F (Samsung Elec.), OLED55C7, OLED65C7 (LG Elec.), XBR55A1E and XBR65A1E (Sony), launched in Amazon (www.amazon.com) in March 2017, are compared to one another).
LG Display’s OLED TV panel sales in October more than doubled thanks to surging sales of major global TV customers such as LG Electronics, Sony and Philips.
On the 26th, LG Electronics announced its 2017 Q3 performance through conference call. LG Electronics recorded consolidated sales of KRW 15.2241 trillion in 3Q and operating profit of KRW 516.1 billion. Sales and operating profit grew by 15.1% and 82.2% YoY respectively. Sales are the highest in 3Qs ever.
Various solutions for high resolution OLED implementation were released at iMiD 2017 held in COEX from October 18th to 19th. As the resolution of small and mid-sized OLEDs, which are currently being commercialized, is staying at the QHD level, the solutions released at this time have attracted a great deal of attention from display members.
At the ‘IMID 2017 Business Forum’ held in COEX, Seoul from 18th to 19th, Toshiaki Arai, chief technologist of JOLED announced JOLED’s printing technology and future road map.
LG Electronics announced on last 11th that LG OLED TV is speeding up the popularization with the monthly sales volume of 10,000 units and above for the first time in Korea. In addition, Sony, which joins the OLED TV camp in 2017, is enjoying great popularity and continues to expand its market share in the premium TV market. As such, OLED TV is leading the premium TV market by improving cost competitiveness through cost reduction as well as excellent image quality.
According to 2017 Solution Process OLED Annual Report published by UBI Research, when solution process (ink-jet printing) is applied to large area OLED, it could reduce up to 40% of component material cost, and approximately more than 18% of production cost compared to WRGB process that uses evaporation method.
Recently VR contents experience through smart-phone device has been increased, therefore high resolution of smart phone is becoming necessary. However, OLED smart-phone resolution still remains at QHD level for 3 years since QHD OLED is applied to Galaxy Note 4 for the first time in 2014.
LG Electronics OLED TV is speeding up its popularization with exceeding monthly sales of 10,000 units for the first time in Korea.
‘LG OLED TV’ was sold every four minutes last month. Compared to the beginning of this year, it’s double. LG Electronics expects sales increase of OLED TVs in the future and to rapidly increase market power.
Fraunhofer FEP announced that they would show bidirectional AR / VR head mounted display devices based on OLED microdisplay at AWE Europe 2017 from October 19-20. According to Fraunhofer FEP, OLED microdisplay supports SVGA (800 x 600) resolution and can display augmented reality and virtual reality of 2D and 3D content via USB interface and HDMI connection. In addition, it is known that it is possible to use an eye tracking system that uses a photodiode to detect a user’s gaze.
At the Global Materials Tech Fair 2017 held on September 22 in COEX, CEO Ko Chang-hoon of EM Index, Cynora’s Korean partner, announced the development of the thermally activated delayed fluorescence, blue TADF, which is currently under development at Cynora.
AUO showed the OLED that can be collapsible and three kinds of round OLEDs (1.2-inch, 1.3-inch, 1.4-inch) for the smart watch in Touch Taiwan 2017 held on 20th.
The round OLEDs in 1.2-inch and 1.4-inch of AUO are 326ppi, and it lowers an electric consumption at 30% versus former production goods. AUO also improves the visibility capacity in outdoor by embedding the brightness increase mode to make a display screen of two kinds of round OLEDs be clear even under bright sunlight.
Specialized in development and manufacturing OLED module, Fraunhofer Institute will introduce Automotive flexible OLED lighting with adjusted color at ISAL 2017 which will be held in Darmstadt, Germany from 25th to 27th September. Fraunhofer Institute had released previously OLED which the color can be adjusted by rigid substrate in 2015.
Mr. Choong-Hoon Lee, the CEO of UBi Research, OLED specialist presented the market trend and prospects of the OLED industry following last year at the Japan Conference, host by Merrill Lynch Japan Securities, from 5th to 7th of September in Tokyo, Japan. The annual conference was held for Merrill Lynch Securities customers, consisting of a forum-type presentation on major industry trends in Japan and small meetings with presenters.
■ LG Display starts mass production of 5G OLED panel for lighting from the end of September
■ OLED lighting panel market is projected to grow from US$ 1.9billion in 2021 to US$ 5.8billion by 2025