Samsung to order 3m OLED panels from LG?
June 23, 2021
By Chris Forrester
LG Display is rumoured to be supplying 3 million of its OLED television panels to rival Samsung.
There are some doubts over the reports, but also strong indication they are justified given the amount of detail included. Samsung Electronics will reportedly order 2 million tto 3 million panels annually from 2022 from LG Display in an ongoing deal.
Based on an average wholesale price of a 55” panel being about $510 (€428) per unit, the contract value could top 5 trillion Won (€36.8bn).
Local reports say that Samsung has decided to buy the panels from LG Display despite its own R&D work on its own QD-OLED panels. The reports also say that Samsung will see its own supply of QD-OLED’s flowing later this year but the numbers will not match market demand.
This is not the first time that Samsung has turned to LG for production volumes. Back in 2017 Samsung bought LCD panels from LG when its usual supplier (Sharp) ceased its supply.
Data from market analysts at Omdia suggest that LG Display will ship almost 8 million OLED units in 2021 (up from 4.5 million units in 2020). In 2022 it is expected to supply 11.7 million OLED units.
Meanwhile, LG has also patented a dual-sided OLED rollable TV. With LG’s existing rollable TV display costing some $87,000, one can only assume the cost of a ‘double sided’ display will be astronomical.