Samsung Display to ‘Struggle’ With Low QD-OLED Yields: DSCC

Supply and demand challenges will impede the startup of Samsung Display’s quantum dot OLED panel business (see 2201030004), and fewer than a million TVs with that technology will be sold globally in 2022, predicted Display Supply Chain Consultants in a white paper Tuesday on top display industry trends for the new year. The QD-OLED product “has several attributes that will make it challenging to manufacture,” and Samsung Display is expected to “struggle with low yields,” said DSCC. “This will be the company’s first effort” at large-generation oxide thin-film-transistor backplanes, it said. Backplane yields were “a major pain point” for LG Display in the early years of white OLED panel production for 1080p TVs, it said. Samsung will be making higher-resolution 4K panels with their own production challenges, it said. Samsung Display didn’t comment. Samsung and Sony, the first two QD-OLED TV brands, “will be challenged to effectively market" the new sets, said DSCC. “We expect that because of the complexity and limited production capacity of QD-OLED, it will be positioned at a price premium over comparable TVs” with white OLED panels from LG Display, it said: “While these QD-OLED TVs will have an advantage in color gamut and perhaps in viewing angle, it is unclear whether these advantages will be noticeable enough to justify the price premium.”