LG Display sees the European market as a critical battleground for premium TVs and is committing heavily in the region to ensure that OLED technology is at the top of consumers’ consideration list this holiday season.

Sang-Deog Yeo, President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of LG Display (Image: LG Display)

Speaking at the company’s first Europe OLED Day symposium in Munich, Sang-Deog Yeo, President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of LG Display said “Europe offers the optimal conditions for OLED expansion, given that it has a high acceptance rate of new technologies and a high premium market portion in all industries. LG Display is committed to maximizing the expansion of the global large screen OLED market within the next two years.”

Attendees were given a rare look at LG Display’s OLED TV strategy in Europe as well as the world and future plans and applications for OLED technology. Major European OLED TV manufacturers such as Loewe, Bang & Olufsen, Philips, Grundig, Metz, Panasonic, Toshiba and LG Electronics participated, along with representatives of industry players such as the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA), market research firm GfK and Red Dot, which has on numerous occasions named LG Electronics’ OLED TVs winners of its coveted Red Dot Design Awards.

Compared to other regions, the European TV market has seen a high rate of adoption and expansion of new technologies: Premium UHD, HDR and WCG TVs account for a significant 76% of the total European TV market, according to the recent report by GfK.

LG Display ushered in the OLED era by launching the world's first OLED TV in cooperation with LG Electronics in 2013. The company saw OLED as a game changer for the future display industry as well as the future TV market. Since then, the number of television manufacturers adopting OLED panels has increased steadily with 13 TV brands showcasing OLED products at the most recent IFA trade show in Berlin. According to GfK, OLED’s position in the global TV market has increased dramatically, accounting for 74% of the 55-inch and over $2,000 premium category and 61% of the 65-inch and over $3,000 category, with OLED likely having overtaken LCD in the premium segment.

“The proportion of customers adopting OLEDs worldwide and the number of OLED products will increase more rapidly in the future,” said Sang-Hoon Lee, Senior Vice President and Head of TV Sales and Marketing Group at LG Display. “Manufacturers adopting OLED will benefit in both brand awareness and sales boost thanks to the halo effect of OLEDs which will ultimately lead to OLED-centric TV companies leading the market.”

OLED TV delivers the Holy Grail of visuals: perfect black, vivid color reproduction and high contrast ratios. This makes it the ideal fit for HDR. OLED also offers wide viewing angles, making it perfect for public places like waiting rooms and bars. as a result of these factors, OLED TVs have consistently won top marks and rankings in quality and performance evaluations conducted in the UK, Germany, France, North America and elsewhere.

In design, OLED offers infinite possibilities as it is transparent, rollable, and foldable. Thanks to its structural characteristics – it requires no backlight and liquid crystal – it can also be super slim. LG Display launched various new products this year such as Wallpaper OLED TVs which can be easily attached to walls, Crystal Sound OLED (CSO), dual-sided displays and Vertical Tiling OLED (VTO), a pillar-like structure created by connecting six OLED panels. The Munich symposium showcased LG Display’s current and future OLED products such as 65- and 77-inch UHD Wallpaper OLED displays, 55- and 65-inch UHD Crystal Sound OLED (CSO), 65-inch UHD Concave CSO as well as cutting-edge next-gen panels such as 18.1-inch rollable OLED and 12.3-inch plastic OLED for automobiles.

What’s more, OLED is easier on human eyes than LCD, even at high level of luminance, resulting in lower eye fatigue than LCD displays. According to research conducted by Dr. James Sheedy of Pacific University, LCD needs to maximize luminance to achieve sharp image quality but OLED can achieve the best picture quality with relatively low luminance thanks to their ability to deliver perfect blacks. Furthermore, OLED is a human-friendly technology as high luminance normally results in eye fatigue but OLED is less stressful to the eye than LCD thanks to its lesser emission of blue light.

“LG Display has established a stable system in terms of production and quality and will expand OLED panel production from 1.7 million units in 2017 to 2.5 million units in 2018,” said LG Display’s Lee. “With preparations for a strong OLED TV surge in place, we will work closely with our European partners to aggressively push the OLED message.”