What Display Daily thinks: When it comes to getting ahead of the competition with an out-of-reach technology proposition, Samsung is saying to MicroLED, I can’t quit you.
AUO, Innolux, PlayNitride a host of other companies are going to be very grateful for Samsung’s reinvigorated stand on MicroLED TVs. How you get to one tenths of the cost of the existing processes is going to be interesting to watch if only as an exercise in supply chain management.
What’s really at play here is an insufficient faith in OLED TV’s path forward. Sure, great screens but big prices, and if you pay attention to any review, good or bad, burn-in looms large. You can forget the workarounds and the benefits of OLED but you can’t expect the average buyer to spend top dollar and then have to become a weekend geek to watch a movie. People with OLED TV money are not watching YouTube videos to figure out the best configuration for their screen.
And, companies like BOE, and Taiwan’s display industry, seem to be doing a better job of figuring out what to do with MicroLED than Samsung, which has a depth of expertise and IP to call on.
Maybe the leapfrog strategy in TVs doesn’t work so much anymore. The notion that one screen technology surpasses the next, grows in size, the market and the screen, well, that all seems a little anachronistic. We don’t have happy nuclear families crowding around a box and watching their favorite shows.
Samsung could easily change the conversation by integrating a camera into their TVs, and making video calling a feature of every one. It could provide integrated sensors, more integration with home automation and so on and so forth. LG has the Thinq app and that notion of device connectivity but it is poorly implemented in practice.
That doesn’t mean that MicroLED TV is not going to happen. It just means there are better reasons to make it happen than thinking that it gives you a competitive advantage for a few years and it fits into this fixed notion that South Korea’s display industry has about holding off Chinese competitors.
When it comes to TVs, people buy an experience and not an LED. Kind of obvious.
High Prices Deter Consumers Buying MicroLED TVs
It’s been a few weeks of reports about LG and Samsung reducing their investment or involvement in further MicroLED TV development, but there are also reports of Samsung continuing to look for ways to get a jump on the market and aiming to reduce production costs by 90% within 2-3 years to make MicroLED TVs more affordable. Currently, manufacturing costs are high due to the complexity of MicroLED technology, involving various cross-industry sectors and supply chains. Despite efforts from companies like PlayNitride, costs remain high across the supply chain.
Samsung’s MicroLED TVs cost over $100,000. To address MicroLED’s challenges, Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Division is collaborating with over 30 core partners and has established an internal task force to promote cost innovation and drive the industrialization of MicroLED TVs.
