The arrival of a new slab manufacturer OLED could eventually pull the prices of televisions down.
If OLED televisions offer incomparable image quality, they are still far too expensive for many potential customers, with prices easily exceeding 1,000 euros on the smallest sizes.
A technology popular with moviegoers but very expensive
The production of OLED panels for televisions, reputed to be very difficult from an industrial point of view, is currently in the hands of a single supplier, LG Display. The latter sells its products to the largest television manufacturers such as Sony, Panasonic and of course LG Electronics for its own range of televisions, including the LG G2, which we had the opportunity to test recently.
Samsung has also just launched its own QD-OLED panels, but the technology is still very expensive, with a 55-inch Samsung S95B model currently selling for nearly 2,500 euros in stores.
However, things could soon change with the arrival of a new player, the Chinese BOE, which has just announced its plans for the production of OLED panels.
A new player that could increase the available supply and lower prices
BOE is no stranger to the sector and today produces small and medium-sized OLED panels for mobile devices, in particular the screen of the iPhone 13. The rumor also evokes a contract between the sub- contractor and Apple for the supply of screens for a future iPad OLED.
The screen manufacturer has indeed announced that its first model will be a 95-inch 8K model with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. BOE does not intend to stop there and is preparing the production of different screen sizes, ranging from 55 inches and 95 inches.
BOE could eventually deliver around 300,000 screens, or 5% of the current OLED TV market. The firm has some experience in mass manufacturing components, so this number could quickly increase over the years.
The arrival of a new player could ultimately be good news for the consumer. With a larger supply, the prices of OLED panels should logically drop, as should the price of the models offered to consumers.
Source : TechRadar
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