In October LG continued with its strong OLED TV push. The company finally launched their first 4K OLED TVs in the US, with the 65" 65EC9700 selling for $9,999. The 77" will launch soon, and you can pre-order it for $24,999. Interestingly in Switzerland you can pre-order it for less than $5,000.

LG started a massive UHD OLED TV marketing campaign in China. LG aims to demonstrate how OLED are superior to LCDs, and they currently cannot keep up with the demand in China. The price of LG's FHD OLEDs, meanwhile, has hit an all-time low, and you can now buy the 2013 55" model (55EA9800) for only $2,699.

Towards the end of October, LG said that while it still considers OLED as the future TV technology, it will also launch Quantum-Dot LCDs. This follows a report from Korea that Samsung will also soon release a QD-LCD TV. Next year LG also has plans to release the world's first bendable OLED, but details are still a bit sketchy on that. One thing is for sure: Plasma is dead, and n October 30, LG formally ended PDP production.

Japan Display unveiled a flexible OLED panel for the first time. The prototype panel is 5.2" in size and features a FHD resolution. JDI refers to this display as a "Sheet OLED", which probably means it can be curved on a surface but it is not flexible/bendable.

In July 2014, Sony, Japan Display, Panasonic and the INCJ formed a new OLED company called JOLED to focus on medium sized OLEDs. JOLED will be launched in January 2015 and will take over all of JDI's OLED activities, which also includes the flexible OLED initiatives. In May 2014 Japan Display said that they are very interested in developing flexible OLEDs, but this is the first time the company showed an actual prototype.

On October 23rd, LG released the G Watch R" smartwatch in Korea for $330. The G Watch R uses a 1.3" (320x320) flexible plastic-based OLED panel.

LG announced that the G Watch R will be available in Europe in the beginning of November, while key markets in North America, Asia and the CIS will get the watch "soon after". AT&T announced that it will be among the first carriers to offer LG's new watch. If you do not want to wait, you can buy the Korean version in Amazon.com now for $394.

In April 2009, Philips started offering OLED lighting panel samples (and was the first company to do so). For over 5 years, Philips shipped many types of OLEDs, but they were still considered a technical gadget, offering them on a special Lumiblade online shop.

But now Philips says that OLED is now an official "product" of Philips, they closed the lumiblade shop and from now on OLED panels will be available via the normal Philips OEM shops. Philips says that "OLED sample time is over" - OLEDs have matured enough to become a real lighting product.

A couple of months ago I posted an article about OLED monitors and laptop displays in which I discussed why there isn't any such product on the market yet. SDC unveiled a new 14" OLED panel, and this probably means that Samsung Electronics is finally developing a laptop device with an OLED display. It may also be that this panel is aimed towards large tablets.

Even though a laptop or monitor display may not be the best market for OLED displays, I still think there's a lot of sense in that. I'm sure there's a real market for premium laptops and customers that will be ready to pay out an extra $200-$300 for a lighter and slimmer laptop with a fabulous OLED display.

BOE has some aggressive OLED plans. The company is constructing a 5.5-Gen LTPS fab in Ordos (for both LCD nad OLED displays), and is also planning to construct a $1-billion Gen-8.5 OLED TV fab in Hefei Xinzhan.

In October, BOE has been reportedly awarded with a $20 million grants towards the Gen-8.5 fab in Hefei from the local government. BOE already has a Gen-8.5 pilot line that was used to produce 55" 4K OLED panel prototypes demonstrated a few months ago.

According to another report from China, BOE Display will build another Gen-8 LTPS AMOLED fab in Chengdu, China. The new fab will have a monthly capacity of 45,000 glass substrates and will produce small sized AMOLED panels for mobile devices. BOE signed an investment agreement with Chengdu's municipal government for this new fab, which will require an investment of 22 billion RMB (almost $3.6 billion USD). Construction will begin in Q2 2015, and mass production will begin in H1 2017.

Barry Young, probably the world's top independent OLED expert, was kind enough to share his views on the OLED market with us. We discuss OLED TVs, flexible OLEDs, OLED lighting and more.

You can read the full interview here.

German-based AIXTRON is developing OVPD-based equipment for OLED deposition. We posted an interview with AIXTRON's Business-Development director that explains the company's technology and latest OLED projects.

You can read the full interview here.