Samsung finally launched their first OLED TV, the KN55S9 - a curved Full-HD panel. The TV is now shipping in Korea for 15 million Won (just over $13,000) - exactly the same price of LG's own 55EA9800 55" curved FHD TV (more on this below). Samsung promises it will launch this TV in more countries next month. Samsung says that their OLED TV offers the "perfect picture quality" and has a unique design. Technical details were not disclosed at the launch event.

Samsung now says that they have no plans to launch regular non-curve OLED TVs in 2013. In fact, the company warns that analysts expectations for fast growth in the OLED TV market is a bit too optimistic. DisplaySearch estimates that 300,000 OLED TVs will be sold in 2014. Supply expects only 1,600 units to sell in 2013, 200,000 in 2014 and 1.7 million in 2015. LG Display themselves sees about 600,000 - 700,000 OLED TV shipments in 2014. Taiwan's ITRI sees 50,000 OLED TVs sold in 2013 and 3.24 million in 2015. Lux Research on the other hand, sees only 7,000 OLED TV sold in 2014 .

So why did Samsung launch this TV now? I think this is only a reaction to LG's own OLED TV launch earlier in 2013. Now Samsung can say it is shipping OLED TVs too, even though obviously this isn't a product that will sell in any meaningful quantities. I guess Samsung is still struggling with low yields (even though reports suggested otherwise) and still cannot mass produce OLED TVs, and they hope that launching a curved TV is a good solution from a marketing point of view.

Towards the end of April, LG launched their 55" curved OLED TV (the 55EA9800) in Korea (for KW 15 million, or about $13,500). LG started shipping those TVs during June. LG's 55EA9800 features an Oxide-TFT WRGB Full-HD OLED panel (like LG's 55EM9700 OLED TV). The TV features "infinite" contrast ratio, passive 3D, Smart Touch Controls and a "paper-slim" design (it's only 4.3 mm thick and weighs just 17Kg). It is made from Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Plastic (CFRP).

Lg's "regular" OLED TV, the 55E9700 is already shipping for $10,000 in Korea. Sales have reportedly been slow, which isn't surprising due the high price tag. It is expected to launch soon in the US, UK, India and Israel.

The Galaxy Note 3 is one of the most anticipated upcoming phones. Samsung invented the "Phablet" category with the original Note, but now the company is facing serious competition from Sony, HTC, LG and others. Not only that, but reportedly, the sales of the GS4 aren't as good as Samsung hoped for. So I'm thinking Samsung needs to really use some innovative technology and design in the Note 3 if they want it to be a best seller phone.

Obviously, I'm mostly interested in the display. At first Samsung was said to use a 6" Super AMOLED display, but we also heard that Samsung actually considers using an LCD panel. Later on in April, the OLED Association claimed that Samsung decided to use a 5.99" flexible AMOLED (a YOUM panel). On June 30, the Korean publication MT Media posted an exclusive story in which they say that the Note 3 will indeed use a plastic-based YOUM panel.

A YOUM panel will be thinner, lighter and most importantly - unbreakable. Obviously a great feature for a mobile device. Opting for a flexible OLED now also makes sense for Samsung because LG Electronics already announced plans to release such a phone by the end of 2013 (more on this below in this newsletter), so Samsung has to stay competitive. On the other hand, it's not clear whether Samsung will have enough flexible OLED production capacity for the Note 3. One possible solution? Samsung may opt to produce two Note versions, one with a flexible OLED and one with a "regular" LCD or AMOLED panel. This is exactly what a different Korean report suggested just a few days ago.

Hopefully Samsung will announce the Note 3 device during the IFA 2013 event (in September) - so we don't have to wait long. It'll be great if Samsung manages to finally bring a flexible OLED device.

LG Display says they expect to start mass producing flexible OLEDs in Q4 2013 and supply them to "major clients". One of these clients is LG Electronics of course who wants to produce the first flexible-OLED phone by the end of 2013. LGD says that they already completed the development of those displays. As far as we know LG's flexible panels uses polyimide coated substrate and direct-emission RGB sub-pixels (as opposed to LG's OLED TV which use an WRGB technology - white OLEDs with color filters). The first panels won't actually be flexible, but they may be curved. They will also be lighter, thinner and much more durable compared to glass-based OLEDs.

LGD will produce the panels in their E2 line in Paju. This 4.5-Gen line will have a monthly capacity of 12,000 sheets. While this is great news, this volume is not enough for a popular smartphone - so it'll likely end up in premium products. It's likely that the first panel will be the 5" display unveiled at SID 2013 last month.

During the last month several research companies released their latest forecasts for the OLED market, with some very interesting observations. DisplaySearch says that AMOLED phone panel shipments will reach over 217 million units in 2013 (up from 134 million in 2012). AMOLED supply/demand ratio will fall to 1% in Q4 2013 - which means that supply disruptions could lead to shortages. In a different report, DisplaySearch says that current manufacturing costs for OLED TV panels are almost seven times higher than LCD panels . They estimate the total manufacturing cost of a 55" FHD AMOLED panel to be $2,454 in Q1 2013. This will improve (In Q1 2014, the the same OLED panel will drop to $1,500), but large OLEDs will carry a large premium in the next few years.

Digitimes is also bullish on OLEDs in the near future. They see AMOLED production capacity reaching 11.47 million square meters in 2015, up 327% compared to 2012. AMOLED handset panel shipments will reach 363 million units in 2015, up 332% from 2011 (110 million units). They expect Samsung and LG to produce 83.7% of the AMOLED market in 2015 (down from 97.7% today).

Cintelliq released a new report in which they forecast that OLED lighting will grow into a $3 billion market by 2020 - and OLEDs will then be a serious competitor to LED lighting. Cintelliq seems to be more optimistic regarding OLED lighting than other research companies. Nanomarkets says that the market will only take off in 2017 (if at all - they still cannot identify the OLED lighting champion that is required to lift the industry). IDTechEx says that in the "most likely" scenario, the OLED market will grow to $1.3 billion in 2023.

Finally, regarding flexible display, IHS says that shipments will grow quickly in the near future and they expect about 3.2 million such displays to ship in 2013. This will grow to almost 800 million displays by 2020. In terms of revenue, the total market will reach $41.3 billion in 2020. The leading display technology for flexible displays will be OLEDs, which will account for 64% of the market in 2020.

Back in 2011 the University of Florida announced a new organic-TFT backplane technology called CN-VOLET, which is especially suited for OLED panels. The University spun-off a company called nVerPix to commercialize this technology. nVerPix is now seeking to raise funds (round A), and we discussed their technology and business in a recent article.

CN-VFET is a new carbon nanotube based transistor technology that can conduct electricity about a 1000 times faster than current silicon-based TFTs. According to nVerPix, CN-VOLETS enables cheaper production, higher contrast and extends the OLED lifetime. nVerPix are currently developing the technology. They are focusing on stability, contrast ratio and the pixel to pixel uniformity.

Our sister site Graphene-Info launched a new monthly newsletter. Graphene is one of the most intriguing new technology in recent years. It has several potential applications for displays (touch panels, OLED backplanes, quantum dots and more) and I think graphene is one of those topics that no one should ignore today. The monthly newsletter will be quite similar to the OLED-Info one - so go ahead and subscribe here.

The OLEDs World Summit, now in its 15th year, is an OLED-dedicated event that includes technical talks, panel presentations, short courses, an exhibition and a great networking opportunity. They now announced their new Agenda - which sounds great. The World Summit event sponsors the OLED-Info newsletter, so thanks for that guys.