This week we hit the start of the results build up part of the quarter and we have lots of financial data and market data. On a global scale, it’s ‘steady as we go’, with not much happening in most of the major segments of the market. There’s a little bit of growth, but nothing to get the pulse racing. The world continues to wait for the ‘next big thing’ that needs a display. As I have been saying since a talk I gave at Latin Display in 2015, that it can be argued that there is some kind of device for every size of display from wearables to stadiums, now, so perhaps we’ve hit a long term patch where we’ll see only limited growth. I suspect that flexible displays could be the big enabler of any radical change. (although LED is the other possible game changer).
In 2012, I had the pleasure of a demonstration of ‘Project Fresco’, an R&D project that we saw at IBC and that had been developed by NDS, which had then just been acquired by Cisco. I had often been shown the idea of wall-sized TVs by companies that looked far ahead, such as Philips, but it was the NDS demo (which used arrays of 55″ video wall monitors) that convinced me that the idea of a wall-sized display was an attractive idea (the project subsequently won an award for innovation at NAB in 2013).
At IBC last year, NHK showed a concept of a very large (130″) 8K OLED made from four 65″ panels. It was very impressive and the concept shown was the idea of a roll-up screen. Honestly, I could imagine something like this in my home, if the usability was as good as the Project Fresco concept.
If this kind of display is the future, then Samsung is going to see itself in a very strong position, given its lead in flexible OLEDs. It doesn’t need help at the moment, it would seem, as the quarterly result that was announced this week shows really good profits, even though it had to deal with the Note 7 disaster and also was at the end of the line of the S7 generation. Given the positive start for the S8/S8+ and a clear run at the market until the next iPhone, it looks as though the company is going to, at least, maintain its momentum through this year and possibly continue to strengthen.
Now, some of Samsung’s strength comes from its memory business and the company is very positive about continuing good growth in its flash memory business, with SSD demand continuing to grow as well as demand for application processors and image sensor and driver chips. The company is also optimistic about the OLED business (which represents the ‘low 60%’ of the value of the display business) and the TV set business. In its quarterly investor briefing, it said that it is looking for more acquisitions to keep it at the cutting edge of technology and following its acquisition of Harman.
Bob
NHK Showed four 65″ OLEDs combined as an 8K display at IBC. Image:Meko
