Bryan Huh is from LG Display and he started by showing some stills from the ‘Back to the Future’ movie, which featured mobile communcators, multi channel TV and other technologies that are now commonplace, but were then seen as future trends. He said that at CES there was lots of focus on IoT applications showing the trend for the future.
For a long time consumer wanted ‘paper like’ TVs. Sony has shown picture TVs in the past, but consumers didn’t like design. Samsyung tried but had downward speakers – not good. Sony made one with good sound, but thicker design.
Now LG has developed the Wallpaper TV. Sony had a TV with the sound coming froim the screen. A survey of analysts and ‘industry specialists’ at CES showed that 68% thought the LG Electronics wallpaper TV was the most impressive product at the event.
LG thinks that some buyers are ready to spend more for this kind of TV and the Wallpaper TV has won a lot of awards. OLED TV has taken a bigger share than LCD in the premium market of 55″ and 65″. It’s happening around the world, US, EU and China, Huh said (although he didn’t say how LG defines the ‘premium’ segment).
LG believes that that it can possibly change the structure of the premium end of the market with the OLED TV.
Huh pointed out that the operating profit has risen of the top three TV makers over the last 10 years and that the specialist in OLED (LG Electronics) now has the highest margins.
Huh said that top TV makers’ margins have improved.
Huh said that the Wallpaper TV can attract customers ‘back to the store’ to refresh their sets because of the compelling design.. Selfridges and Harrods in the UK, Saturn and Media Markt in Germayn, and Best Buy in the US have all had great success with the design. Best Buy mentioned the sets in its earnings call – and said that it had helped to drive the market up. LG Electronics is selling through all the major retailers around the world.
Huh believes that the new form factor of the wallpaper TV can change the design of homes. in the future. He also emphasised that the ‘Crystal Sound’ technology (which uses the front of the OLED as a speaker – Man. Ed.) can make the sound appear to come from the TV and is much better than standard sound, especially down-firing speakers.
LG has now got to 100% of the value that the market wants. LG is also looking from a strategy point of view to first differentiate, then extend its customer base. The target is 1.5 million OLED TV sales and LG Display has now added Sony as a customer for OLED TV panels from CES 2017 onwards.
Now the company thinks it has moved its strategy and now plans to develop new technology that will offer ‘value based’ pricing. LG sees OLED as its key display technology going forward.
Analyst Comment
Unfortunately, LG did not submit its presentation, so we’ve had to use photos from the screen. (BR)
