What Display Daily thinks: You know what happens if you keep all your toys to yourself and refuse to let anyone else play? You get to be lonely real quick. The vertical integration between Korea’s two display giants and their respective consumer electronics stablemates is a great example of that. They don’t want to have anyone else play in the OLED TV market, and now, they’re kind of out there on their own trying to figure out what happened to the party.
Make TVs to sell TVs; make displays to sell displays. Don’t be your own biggest customer. The blight on the TV market is that it is stagnating not because of a lack of opportunity but because of a lack of imagination. You can’t keep selling TVs like they are CRTs because, you know, that’s geezer talk.
You have to be kind of smacking yourself in the head if you went all-in on OLEDs are the greatest and best TVs and you then sell less of them this year than you did last year. You put it out there. You can’t complain when you are called on poor anticipation or a lack of focus on what the market needs.
You kind of forgot that consumers don’t really care about that stuff, they just want to think like they got a good deal on something that makes them feel good. At least that’s how they buy TVs.
If I were Samsung or LG I wouldn’t trust myself in the TV business because I seem to have lost the thread of the TV business: sell TVs. Not market positions to offset the threat of Chinese manufacturers because you have LCD PTSD.
LG and Samsung Pivoting Emphasis to OLED Monitors to Offset Shortfalls in TVs
There was an interesting little report in The Elec, market research firm Omdia unveiled a significant shift in the OLED market, according to the editorial, highlighting a rapid surge in monitor shipments against a backdrop of declining TV demand.
According to Omdia, OLED monitor shipments are projected to experience a remarkable 4.5-fold increase, climbing from 200,000 units in 2021 to an estimated 900,000 units in 2023. This growth starkly contrasts with the OLED TV market, which is facing a downturn, with shipments expected to drop from 7.5 million units last year to 5.7 million units in 2023.
Leading the charge in the OLED monitor segment is Samsung Display, currently topping the shipment rankings. The company’s OLED monitor shipments are poised to rise from a modest 8,000 units in 2021 to 137,000 units in 2022, with a further leap to 652,000 units anticipated in 2023. Samsung’s product lineup includes QD-OLED monitors in various sizes, ranging from 27 to 39 inches.
LG Display holds the second position in the market, with its shipments forecasted to jump from 16,000 units in 2022 to 248,000 units in 2023. The company’s WOLED monitor panels come in six sizes, including two models – 31.5 inches and 42 inches – scheduled for mass production in the first half of the next year.
Japan’s JOLED, which declared bankruptcy earlier this year, is expected to see a decline in its OLED monitor shipments, dropping from 7,100 units in 2022 to just 2,100 units in 2023. Meanwhile, China’s CSOT is gearing up to enter the fray, with plans to commence mass production of monitor OLEDs using inkjet printing technology in the second half of 2024.
Despite the promising growth in the monitor segment, Omdia notes that the market acceptance of monitor OLEDs remains uncertain. The high-end gaming and high-performance graphics market, although growing, is still considered a niche segment with relatively high product prices.
