BOE will soon join LG and Samsung in producing OLED panels for various TV brands

For almost a decade LG remained the only large OLED panel producer, but the situation changed this year when Samsung introduced its QD-OLED panels. The competition is getting heated, no doubt, as the QD-OLEDs seem to perform considerably better than LG’s WOLEDs. However, Samsung may still need at least a few years to ramp up and match LG’s yields, not to mention that Samsung Display is supplying the new panels to only two TV brands, while LG is already collaborating with 20 TV brands. The good news is Samsung is looking to reduce production costs for next year’s QD-OLEDs, and this could trigger a price adjustment from LG, as well. Even better still, prices could see downwards pressure when Chinese display maker BOE is scheduled to make its debut on the large OLED display market in late 2022 or early 2023.

According to South Korean publication Chosun Biz, a recent report released by market research firm DSCC suggests that “China's BOE is preparing to commercialize large OLED panels for TVs. It is known that there are a total of five types of TV OLED sizes that BOE is preparing for commercialization, ranging from 55 inches to 95 inches. In fact, they plan to make OLED panels of all sizes sold for TVs.”

A few weeks ago, at the Display Week 2022 event, BOE showcased its 95-inch 8K OLED TV. The Chinese display maker did not specify what type of OLED technology it is employing, but its upcoming displays are supposed to deliver at least 800 nit peak brightness, 150 nit full screen brightness, 120 Hz refresh rate and 99% DCI-P3 color gamut. Presumably, only the largest displays are 8K.

BOE already has extensive experience commercializing small to medium OLED displays since it used to supply Apple with iPhone and iPad screens. Apparently, Apple terminated the collaboration earlier this year and now BOE is looking to compensate through large OLED displays.

Chosun Biz further reports that "BOE decided to test-produce OLED panels for TVs on the 8th generation (2200mm × 2500mm) B5 R&D production line in Hefei, China. The industry expects annual shipments to be around 300,000 units this year. Although this is only 0.1% of the total TV shipments last year (213.54 million units), it is more than 5% based on TV OLED panels (6.52 million units last year).” For reference, Samsung is planning to increase quarterly QD-OLED TV production to 1,080,000 units by next year.

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