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Samsung & OLED TVs – What to Say
March 05, 2018
 
Imagine this hypothetical telephone call between, Han Jong-hee, president of Samsung's Visual Display Business and Samsung Display’s President & CEO, Dong-Hoon Lee.
 
Han calls and asks Dong-Hoon “How’s it going”? 
 
Dong-Hoon says “Pretty good except we have some extra flexible OLED displays to get rid of”
 
Han: “Did you catch the news about us getting back into OLED TVs because of the Vice Chairman” 
Dong-Hoon:  “Yes, I guess our secret projects are now no longer secret.  We have to do something to catch LG, you know that QDs can’t hack it right now and μLEDs for consumer TVs are years away. 
 
Han: “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?  HOW ARE WE GOING TO SELL QLED TVs IF THE WORLD BELIEVES WE’RE SHIFTING TO OLEDS?”
 
Dong-Hoon: “So what do you want me to do?”
 
Han: “Deny, Deny, Deny!”
 
Dong-Hoon: “OK, but what should I say about the Gen 8.5 IJP we just bought?
 
Han: Say its for TFE or Printing QDs.
 
 
Then the Korean media reported the following:
 
The news out of Korea, which suggested that Samsung will begin looking into making OLED televisions again, has been summarily denied that it had even considered taking that route. The firm’s efforts in OLED TVs were halted several years ago as the focus was shifted to center around an updated display technology that it calls QLED. QLED is effectively OLED without the organic light emitting diodes. Instead, “quantum dot” technologies –are used for light conversion, which improves color and contrast over typical LCD screens. Energy consumption is also improved by the technology, as the firm is always quick to point out. Samsung has also previously touted the advantages of QLED over OLED in larger displays and has gone so far as to say that OLED is not a good fit for oversized displays at all. However, reports surfaced just last week that suggested Samsung could be expanding that portion of its display business, which it still uses for smartphones and smartwatches.

Though not necessarily a response to those reports, TV and display chief Han Jong-hee has now told reporters in the company’s home country that Samsung has no plans to go that route. The executive went so far as to include the word “never” in his response, seemingly wanting to put the issue to rest once and for all. He may have had a good reason for that since he then went on to suggest that the first Samsung MicroLED panels would be ready for commercialization by August. MicroLED displays would be far superior to OLEDs in a number of ways and with Samsung continuing to assert that QLED similarly has an advantage over OLED, it truly appears the company has no intentions of returning to making OLED TVs.
That’s not to say the tech giant could never change its mind since plenty of companies ultimately do, even after making such strong remarks. But that seems extremely unlikely at this point. So, at least for now, it appears as though Samsung OLED panels are going to be relegated to the smaller screens found on smartphones, smartwatches, and other such technology rather than working its way back into the living room.