The Korea Herald reports that Samsung is accelerating its development of TVs based on microLED as its QLED TVs continue to struggle against OLED in the market. A move to microLED would also provide some diversification to the current direction of the display business, which is heavily directed towards OLED. The paper also reports that Samsung is considering buying a Taiwanese firm and speculates that this could be PlayNitride (Will Samsung Buy PlayNitride?)
The paper quoted data from IHS that suggested that while Samsung has dropped from 57.7% of the premium TV market (sets of $2,500 and above) in 2015 to 20.3% in 2016, while LG went from 17.5% to 43.1% over the same period.
Analyst Comment
Of course, Samsung could also benefit from microLED technology in its cinema business as well as in digital signage. As we have previously reported, QLED has gone down even more in 2017 and we have also reported that Samsung is reducing its targets for TV. Of course, it remains the giant of the TV market, but may be looking vulnerable in that market for the first time for a long time. (BR)
Samsung has lost share in Premium TVs
