The days when it would have been unthinkable for arch rival South Korean brands Samsung and LG to trade technologies appear to be over. Having been forced by LCD panel shortages in 2017 to turn to LG Display (the panel manufacturing and technology brand behind the OLED and LCD panels inside all of LG Electronics’ TVs), Samsung is reportedly not only continuing this panel procurement partnership with its closest neighbour, but expanding it.
According to South Korean website The Elec, Samsung has approached LG Display with a view to purchasing as may as four million TV-sized LCD panels for its 2022 TV range, as well as two million LG Display W-OLED panels. The LCD procurement is seen as part of a strategy by Samsung of moving away (supposedly for quality control reasons) from Chinese brands such as TCL CSoT and BOE, while the OLED procurement is part of a predicted move that will see Samsung offering W-OLED TVs alongside its premium QLED models, while also introducing a new premium category of Quantum Dot OLED (QD-OLED) TVs using panels provided by Samsung’s own panel production company, Samsung Display.
Reports suggest that Samsung is about to reverse its previous negative position on OLED TV … [+]
Photo: LG Electronics
It should be said that some analysts believe Samsung will be taking substantially fewer LCD panels from LG than the figures quoted in The Elec’s story. But pretty much everyone agrees that some number of LG LCD panels will find their way into Samsung-branded TVs for 2022. All of which sets up a potentially rather mixed picture for the quality of Samsung’s 2022 TV range.
On the OLED side, it’s refreshing and promising to see Samsung apparently abandoning its long-standing opposition to a technology that’s won the hearts of so many AV enthusiasts over the past decade. Samsung did dally briefly with OLED technology a few years back, using a full RGB solution rather than the more affordable WRGB technology LG has used to dominate the OLED TV market. But aside from that single challengingly expensive model, Samsung’s TV range has stuck to constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with LCD technology.
In fact, Samsung has spent the past few years aggressively attacking WRGB OLED technology for its susceptibility to screen burn!
While Samsung may therefore have to be a little creative with its marketing for …….