IHS Sees Samsung, Sony Driving 8K TV Market, With 'Flagship' Debuts This Year

IHS Markit sees 2018 as the year when most TV panel suppliers will begin mass-producing 8K displays, it said in a report. IHS estimates 4K panels had more than 89 percent of the 60-inch and larger display market, it said. With that magnitude of 4K entrenchment, the migration to 8K will be gradual, it said. It forecasts 8K will make up only 1 percent of the 60-inch and larger display market in 2018, growing to only 9 percent in 2020. With 4K having “rapidly replaced” 1080p in the largest consumer screen sizes, “panel makers are willing to supply differentiated products with higher resolution and improve profit margin with premium products,” said IHS. Samsung and Sony will drive the 8K TV market at the start, with both planning to release “flagship 8K TV models in 2018,” it said. In so doing, Samsung and Sony will consume almost all the available supply of 120-Hz 8K panels from Innolux, AU Optronics and Samsung Display, with sizes varying from 65 to 85 inches. it said. At CES, Sony demoed a prototype of X1 Ultimate picture processor on an 8K display to showcase real-time processing of 8K HDR content at a peak brightness of 10,000 nits. In Las Vegas, Samsung featured the world’s first QLED TV that uses artificial intelligence to upscale standard definition content to 8K resolution, saying the technology will be launched internationally, starting with Korea and the U.S., during the second half of 2018.