Under pressure from TCL and Hisense in the value and affordable markets and Samsung in the top end OLED TV premium market, LG Electronics has moved to confuse consumer even further with the introduction of yet another TV industry acronym in an effort to sell more TVs.
This time round they have introduced a QNED and QNED evo branding, which one person summed up on leading display industry site FlatpanelsHD by claiming “How many non-local dimming models do we really need in 2025? I can’t take LG LCDs seriously with a lineup like this, HDR is almost 10 years old at this point. And why even bother to create a “premium” name like “QNED” if you are just going to release junk under that name?”.
Recently LG electronics whose revenues and profits crashed in Australia in the last financial year, sold their LCD manufacturing plant in China because of the problems they were having selling LCD TV’s, with and without yet another form of branding.
At this stage shop floor staff at retailers are having to explain, OLED Vs QLED, UHD, UHD QLED, Full HD, OLED Evo, HDR LED, UHD Mini LED, and that’s before they get to having to explain the difference between Quantum dots, OLED and Micro LED technology.
To make that even harder LG Electronics is now trying to make up for their use of contrast-poor IPS LCD panels in the past with a new range that has no pedigree in the market.
Key models in their new lineup which is due to be shown at CES is the QNED90, a 100-inch QNED89 and QNED9M with a Zero Connect box which is a big black box that has to located separate to the TV so that it can deliver 4K streaming.
FlatpanelsHD claim that LG’s LCD TVs have never matched the popularity of its OLED models, due to the use of contrast-poor IPS LCD panels, this has led to brands such as Hisense and TCL stripping share away from LG in the value and affordable premium markets.
LG Electronics who are making tens of millions selling data from their TV’s to third party buyers has been forced to rethink its TV strategy, after LG Display moved close their chapter on LCD TV panels following the sale of their last LCD plant to TCL CSOT, which is the same Company stripping share from LG in Australia.
TCL is also the biggest manufacturer of TVs in the world who manufactures TVs for LG, Samsung, and Sony.
At this stage LG is manufacturing their new TV range in a third-party TV factory, they have not said whether their new TVs are being manufactured by TCL or Skyworth with an LG badge on the front.
What is clear is that LG has moved to a new panel supplier due to the poor perception of the quality of their previous LED range.
The South Korean Company who is moving away from consumer goods to enterprise and B2B markets is also abandoning quantum dots in the new “QNED evo” models.
The Company claims that their improved colour gamut compared to previous models has been achieved due to a new proprietary wide colour gamut technology “which replaces quantum dots,”.
Spearheading LG’s 2025 LCD TV line-up is QNED90 with miniLED local dimming, though the number of dimming zones is still unconfirmed.
ChannelNews has already been briefed on the new Hisense TV lineup for 2025 and all we can say at this stage, is that both LG and Samsung are facing serious pressure across their TV technology platforms, sizes offered and with their 2025 TV pricing from both TCL and Hisense.
All of these TV Companies set to go head-to-head at CES trying to outdo each other.
The new 100-inch LG QNED89 will include some form of local dimming, not MiniLED, however the Company is not saying until CES what technology they are using.
