LG cut the price of its 55-inch 1080p curved OLED TV to $2,499, the company said Wednesday in an email alert to reporters. The Model 55EC9300, a holdover from LG’s 2014 introductions, would remain in the 2015 line at its 2014 price of $3,499, the company said in late February (see 1502260045). All new OLED TV models that LG is fielding in 2015 will have Ultra HD resolution, the company said at CES (see 1501050023). The 55EC9300 offers the best 1080p quality available, with OLED technology’s “perfect blacks and incredible color, even at wider viewing angles,” LG said Wednesday. Though the set contains the WebOS protocol introduced on LG’s 2014 smart TVs, it will be eligible for the WebOS 2.0 firmware update when that becomes available this summer (see 1504080047), LG said. Virtually all the retail e-commerce sites we checked Wednesday already had begun merchandising the 55EC9300 at $2,499. Some, like Best Buy, trumpeted the $2,499 offer as a "sale" price reduced from the "regular" $3,999. Others, including Abt Electronics, featured the 55EC9300 prominently on its home page, claiming the $2,499 offer was reduced from regular pricing of $6,999.

Revenue from sales of 4K panels is expected to nearly double from $9.2 billion in 2014 to $18 billion this year and will reach $52 billion by 2020 as new display process technologies improve yield rate and shrink costs, said IHS in a report. Ultra HD LCD TVs have led the applications of 4K displays, and will be 17 percent of all LCD TV sales this year, after contributing $8.8 billion to overall 4K panel revenue in 2014, said IHS. But 4K resolution will arrive in all major display applications this year, including smartphones, tablets, PC monitors, OLED displays, notebook PCs and digital signage, said IHS, with smartphones and OLED TVs showing strongest growth. As advances occur in panels' fine-pitch pixel designs and brightness, 4K displays will become more affordable for mobile devices, said IHS. Sharp and JDI have recently shown 4K smartphone panels, and 4K tablet PC displays using IGZO (Indium gallium zinc oxide) and LTPS (low-temperature poly-silicon processes) are also in panel makers’ plans, it said. And panel makers will increasingly use sub-pixel rendering (SPR) technology -- used in commercial production of AMOLED and LCD displays -- to enhance 4K pixel design in their displays, it said. The main benefits of SPR include fewer sub-pixels, higher transmission and lower power consumption, said analyst David Hsieh, saying SPR “is an important element in the growth of the 4K display market.”

QD Vision introduced a 2 mm-wide Color IQ quantum dot optic component, expanding the market for quantum dot functionality to ultra-slim displays, the company said in a Thursday announcement. The new component is 33 percent thinner than the company’s previous optic and is compatible with LCD backlight systems using 2 mm light guide plates, it said. Though OLED TV suppliers like LG have disagreed, QD Vision has said its Color IQ delivers industry-best color performance.

IHS scaled back its LCD TV shipment forecast ​for 2015 due to slowing demand in North America, Europe and other developed regions. Following “surprisingly strong” shipment growth of 7 percent last year, IHS now expects worldwide LCD TV shipments to grow 4 percent for 2015 to 235 million units. Strong growth is “difficult to maintain,” Paul Gagnon, IHS director-TV research, said in a report. Last year’s uptake was driven by “pent-up demand and a wave of screen-size upgrades by consumers, after several years of shipment declines,” Gagnon said. Rising economic headwinds, including currency deflation, will temper price declines and “perhaps result in some price increases, if deflation becomes severe,” leading to a drop in discretionary spending, he said. The economic impact is expected to take a particular toll on LCD TV shipments in Eastern Europe, where the forecast for 2015 has been lowered by 18 percent year over year, IHS said. But overall shipment growth is expected to remain above 2013 levels, it said. Shipments of 4K UHD TVs will continue to grow as consumers upgrade TVs from the average 32-inch screen size, but shipments of 4K TVs were 11.7 million units last year, just shy of the 12.3 million units forecast early in the year. Shipments of 4K LCD TV and OLED TV are expected to exceed 30 million units this year, with more than 60 percent of those shipments in 50-inch and larger screen sizes. In 2014, 4K TVs carried an average price premium of 143 percent over their 1080p counterparts, and that premium is expected to fall to under 100 percent this year. While 4K will remain a “high-end technology,” affordability of 4K TVs will continue to improve, and IHS expects 1080p offerings in large-screen sizes “to start fading,” Gagnon said.

Chinese TV maker Konka introduced two TVs using QD Vision’s quantum dot technology at the China Information Technology Expo Thursday. The smart TVs claim a wide color gamut and “ultra-slim” design and will be in Chinese retail stores later this year, Konka said. Konka quoted research from Touch Display Research forecasting that quantum dot technology will be in 60 percent of TVs by 2025.

LG Display started mass production of a 5.5-inch Quad HD LCD panel for smartphones that is “a quantum jump” in color gamut, brightness, contrast ratio, touch functionality, power consumption and thin form factor, the company said in a Friday announcement. The panel will be used in LG’s “flagship” G4 smartphone to be unveiled at the end of April, it said. The panel uses “advanced in-cell touch” technology for better touch sensitivity “so that it can respond to touch commands even with water drops on the screen,” LG said. Its contrast ratio is 50 percent higher than previous Quad HD LCD panels, and its brightness increased by 30 percent without any increase in power consumption, it said. High-color-gamut LED technology built into the panel provides more accurate colors in red and green by combining a blue LED chip with red and green phosphors instead of combining the blue LED chip with a yellow phosphor used in conventional LED backlights, it said. LG Display estimates it achieved a 20 percent improvement in color gamut with this technology, the company said.

Competition among mobile phone display module makers will heat up this year as shipments are forecast to grow 4 percent year over year to reach 2 billion units, said research firm IHS. Chinese display module makers have resolved to increase their share of shipments, and in Q3 BOE unseated Samsung Display as the leading mobile display supplier, said IHS. “BOE has benefited not only from Samsung’s LCD outsourcing strategy but also by aggressively developing direct relationships with Chinese mobile phone makers,” said Terry Yu, senior analyst. In addition to BOE, Tianma and InfoVision are targeting their G5 capacity to the mobile phone market, with a focus on a-Si (amorphous silicon)-based types, said Yu. Chinese display module makers also plan to increase market share in the high-end mobile phone display market, said Yu, citing BOE, Tianma and China Star’s G6 LTPS investment plans announced last year. OLED module makers have been aggressively promoting AMOLED products in China, with the average price for 5-inch HD (1280 x 720 294 PPI) AMOLED modules in China’s open market dropping from $43 in Q1 last year to $25 this quarter, he said. Local Chinese brands are “simplifying their handset models, in order to achieve better revenue performance,” he said.

The high pricing of quantum dot (QD) material has been the main hurdle for its adoption in LCD, but recently “there have been several trials for lowering the QD material cost,” Jimmy Kim, senior analyst-display materials in the DisplaySearch South Korea office, said Friday in a blog post. “Some companies are building an in-house supply chain, as most of the high price may be attributed to the monopoly-like supply chain for QD materials. If more makers are able to supply QD materials, the price will lower.” Others are trying to “optimize the structure of their QD components” to reduce QD materials consumption and boost production yields, Kim said. “Using these means, some makers have succeeded in lowering the cost of QD components.” Other QD hurdles remain, including lower energy efficiency compared with “typical” LCDs, he said. “Many believe that millions of QD LCD TVs will sell this year. But it may not be easy to raise QD LCD TV shipments to such a level under the current cost structure.”

EPI bowed a monitor with a base that doubles as a Bluetooth speaker. The Philips Moda 2 comes in 24-inch ($219) and 27-inch ($319) versions, each with a pair of 7-watt speakers tuned with SRS Wow HD for stereo enhancement and “maximum thump” in bass, the company said Wednesday. Users can connect mobile devices and other portable electronics via MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link), which is said to offer simultaneous charging of portable devices. Moda 2 is targeted to gamers, graphic designers and professionals, the company said.

Universal Display believes its new long-term agreement with LG Display on OLED materials and licensing “is the kind of deal that will help OLED turn the corner, much like some of the key deals that accelerated LCD tech’s adoption,” emailed Universal spokeswoman Cassandra Grob Monday. “This has the potential to grow OLED manufacturing, device performance, adoption and expanded product integration.” Under the agreement, which runs through the end of 2022, Universal granted LG Display non-exclusive license rights under various Universal patents to manufacture and sell OLED display products, the companies said. LG Display will pay Universal license fees and “running royalties,” they said. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Universal is a longtime supplier of phosphorescent OLED materials to LG Display, mostly red host and emitter products, and had long been seeking a long-term partnership with LG Display similar to the pact it had with Samsung that involves licensing and materials, Universal has said (see 1305170053).