I’m pleased to be home today, after six days at Mobile World (including press days), a quick trip to Vienna for ECR (report in LDM this week), a visit to the Air Traffic Congress in Madrid and a return to Barcelona for the opening of a new demo facility by Leyard. We’ll have reports on the last two events in next week’s pdf, but watch out for the posts online if they are of interest. While I was flying around, Samsung was launching its 2018 QLED TVs and it seems they may well be as impressive as the prototypes and samples shown privately at CES. It looks as though the sets are as good as they looked then.
As I said before CES, Samsung had to react to LG’s success with OLED and this year should see Samsung recover momentum in the TV market. The design of the new sets and the extension of the ‘One Cable’ concept to get rid of the power cable, a really good move. Picture quality is a big factor in TV purchase, but as we have said for many years, TV is furniture, so design and how the set fits into the home is really critical for success.
I mentioned after CES, that LG Display didn’t significantly boost its OLED panel performance this year, but the development of the rollable TV may be enough to keep it competitive in the market. Samsung has said that there is a design-led market and a visual quality-led market. Now, my interpretation of this is that the company plans to promote the edge-lit TVs for the design side, with the FALD sets (which are that much thicker) for visual quality.
On the OLED side, LG has had both aspects on its side for the last year, but this year, it may find that it is out-flanked in each area. In visual quality, the demos that Samsung showed how good its latest QLEDs are compared to OLED and the extension of the deal with Calman is also a very good one in helping it to ensure that sets can be really well set up and have a good chance of winning shoot-outs in comparison to last year.
Samsung has often had success in the past with stand-out products that have a kind of ‘halo effect’ on other products in the range that might be less than stellar. It is probably hoping for the same in the 9QF.
LG, at ISE, was promoting its OLEDs for commercial applications. However, we’re still not convinced that the technology is ready for heavy duty professional use. At the event in Barcelona, we heard, unofficially, that the prestige project that LG created in Dubai, using OLEDs, is seeing a lot of problems, with more than 5% of panels having to be replaced already. That does not bode well for the future of the technology. That project could cost LG a lot in terms of warranties and reputation, if the information is accurate.
The overload from events meant that our Product News section was not ready for this week’s issue, but we’ll publish the articles online and catch up in the PDF next week. Apologies.
Bob
