Sigmaintell Research of China reported that Q1 of 2018 saw sales of 510,000 OLED TVs globally, a significant growth of 127% compared to Q1 of 2017, despite the overall low growth in TV, especially in Europe and China.
LG, of course, dominates with ‘up to 70%’, but Sony, Philips and Panasonic are growing now. LG Electronics and Sony have both boosted their margins to 14% and 7.4%, respectively. Sigmaintell also pointed out that Loewe and Arçelik (which owns the Beko and Grundig brands) of Europe started to sell and that Hisense will start to ship in the second half of the year. The researcher ranked the shares as:
- LG
- Sony
- Philips
- Skyworth
- Panasonic
- Loewe
- Changhong / Konka (same rank)
- Arçelik
Although LG Display will increase the capacity of its G8.5 line from 60K substrates per month to 70K in the second half of the year, supply is more of a problem than demand. High pricing, anyway, limits the volume growth that is possible.
Sigmaintell predicts that the price of OLED TV panel will remain stable in the short term. With LG Display putting into production its G10.5 OLED line in Paju, Korea and G8.5 line in Guangzhou, China, its sales are likely to improve significantly and the market penetration rate of OLED TV in the global TV market by 2020 is expected to exceed 2%.
