LG Electronics Inc, the world’s second-largest TV maker, started selling a 55-inch set in South Korea that uses new display technology and is thinner than Apple Inc’s iPad as it tries to overcome falling global demand.
The model featuring organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology costs 11 million won (US$10,300) and is only available to domestic customers, the Seoul-based company said in a statement yesterday.
LG will expand sales to North America, Europe and other Asian markets during the next three months as it gets the technology to market before Samsung Electronics Co.
Photo: AFP / LG Electronics
LG and Samsung are counting on OLED technology to widen the sales gap with Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp as industrywide demand falls amid consumer shifts toward portable devices for watching video.
OLED technology uses less power than current liquid-crystal displays and shows more vivid images, while costing more than double the average for an equivalent LCD set.
“The key issue here is how LG could possibly narrow the price gap between the new OLED TVs and conventional LCD TVs,” said Seo Won-seok, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities in Seoul. “The price for OLED TVs should come down to about US$5,000 to US$7,000 to open up the initial market, which is expected late this year at the earliest.”
Samsung, the world’s largest TV maker, planned to sell its own OLED models last year before saying on Dec. 21 it will delay launch until this year because of high prices and sluggish market conditions.
Both companies unveiled prototype OLED sets at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
OLED TVs are expected to be the fastest-growing segment of the US$100 billion TV industry.
Shipments of OLED TVs may rise to 2.1 million sets in 2015 from 34,000 last year, according to an estimate last year by Englewood, Colorado-based IHS Inc’s iSuppli.
“LG is prepared to ramp-up quickly to take the lead in the OLED segment,” the company said in the e-mailed statement.
Samsung and LG use different OLED technologies. Samsung uses red, green and blue OLED materials inside individual pixels to create images, while LG uses white light and an extra color filter.
LG’s new TV is 4mm thick, compared with Apple’s iPad Mini at 7.2mm.
Sony, which introduced the first OLED TV with an 11-inch screen in 2007, and Panasonic announced a partnership in June to develop more OLED sets. Tokyo-based Sony is headed for a ninth year of losses from TVs, and Panasonic forecast a ¥765 billion (US$8.8 billion) net loss for the fiscal year ending March 31.
Global TV demand is expected to remain little changed this year after shipments of all TV types declined more than 4 percent last year, researcher DisplaySearch said in October.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last