Samsung to start buying OLED panels from LG for its TVs
Samsung may be a big TV manufacturer, but it doesn't do OLED TVs since 2015. The company bet on its QLED panels, which are far closer to LCD panels in terms of both cost and quality. The company is also rapidly developing its microLED tech, which is seen as superior to OLED in terms of image quality, but still prohibitively expensive and only available in the largest diagonals.
It now seems Samsung is looking to buy more time for the microLED tech to mature and will look to cover the premium market with OLED TVs. And the company has turned to its South Korean neighbor to achieve this.
According to Reuters, Samsung and LG struck a deal in which the latter will deliver 2 million 77 and 83-inch high-end OLED panels in 2024, 3 million in 2025 and 5 million in 2026. As of now, about 50% of the OLED TV market is held by LG, while Sony gets 26%. And Sony sources its panels from LG as well.
Part of the reason why Samsung is making such a drastic shift in its strategy is probably due to the Chinese fierce competition in the LCD segment along with Samsung's not-so-great Q1 2023.