Reports coming out of Korea indicate that Samsung is in the process of readying a release of an OLED TV for later this year. No, not that OLED TV, the other OLED TV.
Samsung’s 2022 roadmap for its TVs has been, shall we say, a bit confusing. Towards the end of 2021, it emerged that the Korean electronics brand was looking to go into business with their fierce rival LG, interested in buying two million OLED panels to ship 500,000 QD-OLED TVs and 1.5 million ‘traditional’ OLEDs for 2022.
This struck us as odd, a comedown from Samsung’s position that its QLEDs were a superior proposition thanks to their ability to strike higher brightness levels and the fact that LCDs aren’t susceptible to burn-in, an issue Samsung has gone to great (and sometimes amusing) lengths to point out. Samsung did launch an OLED TV, but that was nearly 10 years ago.
But the market is changing and LCD TVs don’t appear to be the cash cow they once were, with the influx of cheaper LCD panels from Chinese manufacturers reducing profits.
We know Samsung are launching a QD-OLED TV, despite their attempts to keep it hush-hush at CES, it won an Innovation Award. The reason why it wasn’t mentioned in any of Samsung’s dispatches ahead of the trade show was, apparently, due to the “desired quantity is not yet available”. That allowed Sony to hog the honour of announcing the first QD-OLED model with its A95K Master Series.
Vice Chairman Hang Jong-Lee told reporters at CES that there is “a possibility of purchasing LG OLED” and news has emerged of Samsung striking an agreement to purchase the panels after overcoming a few hurdles. Korean site The Elec reports Samsung will look to launch its WOLED (White-OLED) TVs in June, slightly later than the original date of May 2022.
It’s an interesting state of affairs as Samsung was one of the few holdouts to the technology. Joining the ranks of OLED could see it embraced further and it seems LG are ecstatic about it. LG Display vice president Oh Chang-ho said: “I have been doing OLED alone for 10 years, and now I have a partner. It will be an opportunity for the OLED market to grow and grow further.”
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this it continues to develop.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
