LG sees a bright future for flexible displays, and in fact the company predicts that flexible smartphones will take-up 40% of the smartphone market in 2018. Samsung thinks the same, and they are basing their numbers on DisplaySearch - which means that LG is also probably actually quoting the same source.

LG Electronic's mobile product planning chief, Dr Ramchan Woo, says that "we are bored of flat" and that a flexible device is much more than just a flexible display - there are other key technologies such as a flexible battery and thin cover glass. LG says that truly bendable and flexible devices will come in the future - but it will take around a decade before such devices will hit the market.

In the mean time we'll have "semi flexible" devices - for example LG's G Flex phone. A few weeks ago LG started launching it outside of Korea, and it will arrive in Europe in early 2014.

In June 2012, Sony and Panasonic announced that the two companies will jointly develop technologies for OLED TV panels mass production. Now the two Japanese companies announced that they canceled the joint development. They will continue to develop OLED technologies independently, but will focus on UHD LCDs.

In January 2013 (during last year's CES event), the two companies unveiled 56" 4K OLED TV prototypes. The Oxide-TFT substrate was produced by AUO. We know that Panasonic used an ink-jet printing process, Sumitomo's P-OLED materials and a direct-emission architecture. Sony used their own Super Top Emission OLED technology and evaporable OLED materials.

I think we'll soon know whether Sony is making the same mistake they did when they did not enter the flat panel TV market a few years ago. It may also be that the production technologies chosen by the Japanese companies were simply too complicated and costly to develop at this stage. This seems to be good news for Korea's LG and Samsung as these two companies continue their strong push into OLED TV production.

In November Samsung hosted their annual analyst day, in which they repeatedly said that OLED is the future display technology. Most of SDC's capex will go into OLEDs and going forward OLEDs will be used ina ll high-end displays.

During December though, we heard several conflicting reports regarding Samsung's display strategy. First up were reports that Samsung will actually use LCDs in the Galaxy S5 and the Note 4 - in an attempt to lower costs. Further reports claimed that as Samsung Electronics will focus on mid-market phones in 2014, SDC was asked to reduce OLED prices by "at least 10%" and reduce OLED production and increase LCD production.

On the other hand, we also heard that Samsung actually started producing a new OLED display - a 5.25" WQHD (2560x1440, 560 PPI) AMOLED that will be used in the GS5. The display uses the same Diamond Pixel arrangement as in the GS4.

Samsung is also said to release new AMOLED tablets soon. Samsung is reportedly developing 10.5" and 8" OLED tablets and will unveil the first one at the CES 2014 event on Janaury 7.

In fact, SDC, officially expects OLED panel revenue to grow 27% in 2014. Digitimes says SDC's OLED production capacity will grow 33% in 2014 - from 140,000 Gen-5.5 substrates in the end of 2013 to 177,000 by the end of 2014. If Samsung indeed wants to start using OLEDs in mass-market tablets, they will sure need to increase production capacity quickly - or else start adoping LCDs in some mobile phone models. In the beginning of December, SDC announced that they are integrating their OLED and LCD divisions as they want to realize "organic integration" and simplify display marketing.

CES 2014 will begin in a few days, and it should be an exciting event. We may get several new 4K OLED TVs, bendable TVs, a new OLED tablet, the GS5 display panel and new flexible OLED prototypes and products. Read more about our predictions for CES 2014 here!

In August we heard a report from Japan that Taiwan's Hon Hai (Foxconn) is establishing an OLED R&D center in Japan. Now Taiwan's OFWeek reports that Hon Hai is developing high resolution OLEDs aimed for mobile phone and tablets with plans to start volume production in 2015.

According to the report, Hon hai will first develop OLED panels with 350 PPI, and will supply them to Chinese mobile phone makers. Then the company will produce high-resolution panels (up to 450 PPI) as they hope to supply OLED panels to Apple.

In the meantime, Apple continues to file OLED related patents. In December the USPTO unveiled a new patent that describes OLED displays with integrated thermal sensors, while a new European patent describes several new technologies for a future iPhone device - mainly a wraparound flexible transparent display that enables new form factors, aided with an alumina powder liquid-metal process.

2013 is soon over, and it was an exciting year for OLEDs - what with the first OLED TVs and flexible OLED panels finally shipping. Here are the top 10 stories posted on OLED-Info in the past year, ranked by popularity:

1. Samsung officially launches their YOUM flexible OLED displays (Jan 10)
2. LG's 55" OLED TV finally on sale - $10,000 in Korea, will ship next month (Jan 2)
3. Hands on with 4D Systems 2" transparent PMOLED panel (Apr 28)
4. Samsung launches 55" curved OLED TVs in Korea for $13,000 (Jun 27)
5. CES 2013 OLED summary (Jan 13)
6. Samsung Display now mass producing 5.7" flexible OLED (Oct 7)
7. Samsung shows off a 55" curved OLED TV prototype (Jan 9)
8. Panasonic shows a 56" 4K printed OLED TV prototype (Jan 9)
9. Panasonic's printed 56" 4K OLED TV prototype uses Sumitomo's PLED materials (Mar 19)
10. Samsung unveils the Galaxy S4, with a 5" Full-HD (441 PPI) Super AMOLED display (Mar 15)

Here's for an awesome and bright 2014!