It’s been a roller coaster ride for Korean tech conglomerates LG and Samsung. In 2021, it was reported that they were close to striking a major OLED panel business deal, but in 2022, it looked like the talks had broken down. Now, in 2023, the talks may have resumed.
The Elec reports that Samsung Electronics and LG Display have resumed talks on a deal that would see LG supply more than 200,000 white OLED (WOLED) panels to Samsung for a new line of Samsung-branded TVs that could launch as early as 2024. That number would potentially only be the start of a longer partnership.
When news of the negotiations first broke a few years ago, it was reported that the conversation had been initiated at the request of the South Korean government in response to an international situation in which Chinese display companies Both LCD and BOE were raising the cost of LCD panels, threatening Samsung’s TV dominance. At that time, Samsung was all-in on LCD technology in its TVs, competing with LG’s growing focus on OLED.
Due to these market changes and because OLED, in general, has achieved a greater share of consumer display spending compared to LCD, Samsung needs to further diversify with OLED to ensure its future success, at least until Micro LED becomes an affordable OLED alternative. .
LCD panels have several fundamental image quality weaknesses compared to OLED, namely that each pixel is not individually emissive, making it difficult to achieve high contrast ratios or black levels deep at the pixel level. Samsung and others have introduced several innovations in recent years to address these weaknesses, but OLED has won head-to-head among critics.
Still, OLED has some downsides. It’s harder to make OLED panels extremely bright than with LCD, and that’s key to punchy HDR highlights and bright room viewing. And, of course, OLED panels have a history of breaking in. Just as Samsung sought to correct the main image quality weaknesses of LCD screens, LG produced inventive solutions that reduced the risk of OLED burn-in. For example, LG TVs can automatically detect ubiquitous network logos and darken or even move pixels in those areas of the screen in a way too subtle for you to notice, but which prevents pixels from burning out as quickly. .
However, these solutions are not absolute. If Micro LED lived up to its promise, it would offer the best of both worlds: individually emissive pixels with high potential brightness and absolute blacks, and no risk of burn-in. However, companies and researchers working on Micro LEDs have yet to make this technology affordable enough for the mass market.
For now, at least, Samsung needs to ship more OLED TVs to compete. This deal would see LG and Samsung team up so that Samsung could ship new types of WOLED TVs over the next few years.
Currently, Samsung embeds QD-OLED screens in high-end televisions. WOLED panels could, however, allow the company to replace LCDs in the mid-range market, significantly reducing its reliance on Chinese companies in the LCD supply chain and giving the company more weight in its negotiations with these companies.
Meanwhile, LG has recently suffered considerable operating losses. Under the terms of the deal, this could help LG close that gap.
