According to ETNews, Samsung Electronics is considering to start investing in a microLED TV production facility and equipment in the first half of 2020. ETNews says that Samsung did not yet decide on the investment amount or its production output goals - but microLED equipment makers are hoping for Samsung's orders.

If Samsung will indeed start to invest in microLED production in earnest, this will quite a surprise as microLED production costs are still very high and it is unlikely that prices will drop enough in the near future to appeal to the consumer market. There are also technical challenges yet to overcome.

The local government of China's Guangzhou province announced that it now offers large subsidies (up to $285 million USD per company) to encourage emerging technology production in the province.

The government announced a list of emerging display technologies - which include OLEDs, quantum dot displays, e-paper displays , graphene enhanced display technologies - and microLED displays.

In May 2019 PMOLED display maker RiTDisplay announced a strategic partnership and share swap with MicroLED developer PlayNitride, and RiT later said it aims to release its first product to the market in 2020.

RiT announced today that its revenues for the year (to date) were $47.1 million USD - a decrease of 32.4% compared to last year. The company's CEO says that its PMOLED sales has been affected by e-cigarette bans in the US, and the company is now shifting its focus to develop micro LED displays (and also mini-LED ones).

China-based display maker Konka launched tiled large micro-LED displays, under the APHAEA brand. These are modular displays (similar to Samsung's The Wall and Sony' Crystal LED displays) and Konka demonstrated several possible configurations - including 118" 4K and 236" 8K.

Konka already announced the prices of its new TVs - the 118" 4K one costs around $240,000 while the 236" 8K TV costs $1.25 million. For those that think that this is extremely expensive, Konka says that the cost is around 30% cheaper than a comparable Samsung The Wall TV (Samsung is not disclosing the prices of these tailor made displays).

In early 2019 Rohinni announced a collaboration with China-based display maker BOE, and now the companies announced that they are launching the JV as a separate company called BOE Pixey, which will design and build micro-LED based LCD display backlights and direct-emission displays - focusing on large-area displays (32-inch and up).

BOE Pixel will also develop related sensors for large-format displays. BOE Pixey integrates Rohinni's mini-LED and micro-LED manufacturing process with BOE's display panel production experience and leadership. The company says that first products that utilize its displays will reach the market in the second half of 2020.

China-based display maker Konka announced it is building a micro-LED research and development center in Chongqing, China. Total investment in this initiative is around $365 million, out of which Konka will invest $215 million (the rest is contributed by the local government)

These funds will be used to purchase micro-LED production equipment, R&D and also to increase the production of support the sale of Micro-LED related products. Konka hopes that this investment will propel it to leadership in the microLED industry. Konka believes that Micro-LED will become the leading technology for ultra-high quality consumer TVs.