Eternal Rivalry
While the world TV market was hit hard by a global economic downturn, Samsung Electronics re-entered the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV market after 10 years. This has made the OLED TV market a new battleground in the greater premium TV market.
According to industry sources on March 7, Samsung Electronics will launch an OLED TV loaded with a next-generation display Quantum Dot (QD)-OLED panel along with Neo QLED 8K and Neo QLED TV in Korea on March 9.
Samsung Electronics’ OLED TV launch is the first in the Korean TV market in 10 years. The global TV giant, which previously introduced OLED TVs in 2013, judged that there were problems with the technology, yields, and profitability in OLED TVs and focused on LCDs instead. However, it has reportedly changed its strategy as display technology has recently improved and the growth of OLED TVs has become more prominent in the premium TV market.
LG Electronics, the absolute leader in OLED TVs, will also introduce innovative technologies and new products for 2023 as a TV maker that has led the OLED TV market for the past 10 years at the Seocho R&D Campus in Seoul on March 8.
Although Samsung Electronics ranks first in the global TV market, LG Electronics accounts for close to 60 percent of the highly profitable OLED TV market. According to Omdia, a market research institute, global OLED TV shipments in 2022 stood at 6.5 million units, of which LG OLED TV shipments were 3.824 million, taking the No. 1 position for ten consecutive years.
"Since OLED TVs account for half of the premium TV market of TVs costing US$1,500 or more, it is inevitable for Samsung to enter the OLED TV market," an industry insider forecast. “Samsung and LG will have quite fierce competition in the OLED TV market down the road.”
A war of nerves has been waged between Samsung and LG. Recently, a foreign media outlet reported on Feb. 28 (local time) at a media event hosted by LG Electronics' German subsidiary that QD-OLED TVs developed by Samsung Electronics were vulnerable to burn-in, citing the results of a product review by a U.S.-based IT media outlet.
Some TV industry insiders say that a direct comparison of Samsung and LG OLED TVs is somewhat unreasonable as the specifications and usage environments of OLED TVs are not the same. LG's WOLED displays create white by stacking red, green, and blue (RGB) elements vertically and implement color by adding a color filter on top of that stack. On the other hand, Samsung’s QD-OLED displays use blue elements as a light-emitting source and inorganic quantum dots act as a color filter.