OLED panels, for use in TV displays or to be further sliced up for use in smartphones, enjoyed spectacular sales success in 2017. LG Displays says it will invest 5 trillion Korean Won (about $4.7bn) to be a new fabrication plant in China at Guangzhou in Guandong province, to help meet local and international demand.

LG will own 70 per cent of the Chinese project and turn out some 60,000 full panels a month, which in this case will be used for large formal TV sets.

Statistics from Chinese consultancy All View Cloud (AVC) showed that OLED TV sales continued their rapid growth from January to October, especially in China. In October, sales were up 239 per cent year-on-year.

In Japan, helped by new OLED introductions from Sony and Samsung, sales of more than 10,000 OLED units a month were recorded in November, according to data compiled by the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA), an increase of 50 per cent on the October numbers.

Sales of all flat-panel TVs totalled (including LCD units) 332,000 units in Japan in November, down from 427,000 units sold during the same period a year ago, the data showed. Overall shipments of 4K TVs reached 146,000 units in Japan, up 2.3 per cent y-o-y. Moreover, 4K TVs also accounted for 44 percent of total unit Japanese shipments in November, suggesting that OLED and even 8K TVs have potential for further development in the Japan market.

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