According to a report from Korea, Samsung Display decided to re-enter the OLED TV market as the Korean display maker finds it difficult to make a profit from the competitive LCD business (some reports suggest that SDC aims to split the OLED and LCD business soon). Interestingly, the reports suggest that Samsung aims to use a WRGB architecture - like LG uses in their own OLED TVs, and unlike the direct-emission used in Samsung's small display and first-generation OLED TVs. The WRGB (white OLED with color filters and four sub pixels) was originally developed at Kodak, and then bought by LG back in 2009.

SDC will face a problem though - because LG (through GOT) owns the basic patents for WRGB. Samsung and LG have been fighting over OLED patents for years, but on March 31st it was reported that the two arch-rivals finally ended their legal disputes. Perhaps Samsung's wish to access LG's WRGB tech was behind their decision to make amends.

Of course we should remember that this is just an unverified report. Over two years ago the Korea Times reported that Samsung is going to switch to WRGB for their OLED TV production, which never happened. But maybe this time it is true. We had one tiny hint when earlier this month Samsung filed for new OLED TV trademarks in Korea.

Samsung released their first OLED TV, the KN55S9C, back in June 2013. The TV was available worldwide for a short time for around $10,000, and then dropped to around $6,000 (and even lower) - but Samsung soon stopped production and never released another TV. Samsung officials repeatedly said that Samsung will not resume OLED TV production until 2016 or 2017.

In early March, Samsung officially announced their next flagship phone, the Galaxy S6 and its curved-display variant the Galaxy S6 Edge. Following the disappointing sales of the Galaxy S5, it seems that Samsung focused on the phone look and feel - and reportedly the GS6 looks and feels great, especially the S6 Edge with its curved flexible OLED display.

The two phones sport the same features - an aluminum body covered with Gorilla Glass 4 on both sides, an octa-core CPU (quad-2.1 Ghz and quad-1.5 Ghz), 3GB of RAM, 16 MP camera, LTE Cat6, Android 5.0 and wireless charging support. Both display have the same specification - 5.1" QHD (2560x1440, 577ppi) Super AMOLED. DisplayMate tested the new displays and said that these are the best mobile displays ever (together with the display used in the Note 4)

The GS6 is not shipping yet, but apparently initial reaction is good. Samsung Electronics already reported high demand from mobile carriers - with over 20 million orders, including 5 million for the Edge variant. Reports from Korea say that Samsung may decide to increase the GS6 Edge output - in fact they may want to triple the planned production, as they think the GS6 Edge may sell as many units as the 'regular' GS6. Producing millions of flexible/curved OLED displays will have a dramatic effect on many Samsung suppliers, but the big question is of course whether Samsung Display will be able to produce so many flexible plastic-based displays? The company's current flexible OLEDs are made in a 5.5-Gen line with a capacity of only 8,000 substrates per month - which is about 1 million 5" panels at 100% yields. But of course yields are lower, and Samsung also produces displays for other products (such as the Note Edge and Samsung's several wearable devices). Samsung aims to start production in its new 6.5-Gen flexible OLED fab soon - and perhaps they will attempt to start producing at the new fab sooner than planned.

On March 9th, Apple officially launched their Watch wearable device - and while the company revealed the release date (April 24) and prices (starts at $350), they did not reveal any more details on the display - all we know officially is that it is a flexible retina display. It is pretty much confirmed that the Watch uses a flexible plastic-based OLED display made by LG Display.

A report from China claims that LG Display is struggling with low yields at their P-OLED fab - and that Apple only accepts around 30-40% of the screens produced by LGD. Apple planned to produce about 2.5-3 million Watch devices each month, and this has been scaled back to 1.25-1.5 million devices. Some other reports suggest that Apple is in talks with SDC to supply displays for the next-gen Watch. Apple may also try and expedite Foxconn's rumored OLED fab if LG is indeed suffering from such low yields and low production capacity.

According to reports from Japan, LG Chem is planning to construct a new production line for OLED lighting by 2017. According to the reports, LG Chem will commit 200 billion Korean Won ($185 million) towards this new fab, which will increase its production capacity and will lower prices dramatically.

LG Chem started discussing the Gen-5 line back in 2012 (and the plan was to build it by 2015), but hopefully this time the company will actually execute the expansion plan. The OLED Association says that LG Chem has seen great advances in panel performance, cost reduction, production yields and in-house material adoption, and the company executives believes now is the time to increase capacity and finally start mass producing OLED panels.

LG Chem believes that a Gen-5 fab will lower production costs by 90%. The OLED Association estimates that a 10x10 cm OLED could sell at around $5, which may lead to cost/performance ratio of about 30-50 $/kLm (current OLEDs from LG Chem and Philips are at around 200 $/kLM). LED lighting is currently at about 10 $/kLm, so OLEDs will be very expensive, but quite competitive for the premium market (of course LEDs prices will probably also be lower in 2017).

Hopefully this move by LG Chem will also drive other OLED makers to follow suit. Konica Minolta is already in the final stages of building its $100 million R2R OLED fab. Philips is spinning-out its OLED unit, and hopefully following a successful business move, they will be able to also commit to a lager production fab.

In August 2013 Visionox started constructing their Gen-5.5 AMOLED production line, and according to the company, they are set to start mass producing AMOLED panels in Q2 2015 (i.e. by June 2015). This line will produce 4,000 substrates each month at first and once yields stabilize it will reach its full capacity of 15,000 monthly substrates.

When this happens, Visionox will become the world's second largest AMOLED producer after SDC (which currently produces 140,000 monthly Gen-5.5 substrates). China's EverDisplay also has a monthly capacity of 15,000 substrates, but its production line is smaller (Gen-4.5). The fourth AMOLED producer, Taiwan's AU Optronics, also has a Gen-4.5 line but production volume is unclear at the moment.

Visionox also updated on their flexible OLED development. The company developed three flexible OLED prototypes. The largest one is a 7.6" 800x480 display. The flexible OLED thickness is about 20 um, with a bending radius of 3 mm. Visionox's flexible OLEDs use a polyimide substrate and an LTPS backplane (similar to both LGD's and SDC's flexible OLEDs).

As some of you know, I've been following OLEDs for over 15 years (OLED-Info itself is over 10 years old) - and the promise of flexible displays has always been there. In fact most people believe this is the true major benefit of OLED displays. In the past few weeks, it feels as if flexible OLEDs are finally arriving to the market... Click here for the rest of the article.

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This is the fourth OLED-Info market report. The first one focused on OLED microdisplays, the second on automotive OLEDs and the third on flexible OLEDs.