The TV market is in turmoil, LG is struggling in the OLED market, while Samsung has lost its leadership position in the market for TVs over 80 inches to TCL.
This has spurred Samsung to revise their TV strategy with the Company set to use CES 2025 to reveal multiple TVs over 100 inches.
The pressure on South Korean TV brands who have dominated the TV market for decades after taking out Japanese Plasma brands such as Sharp, Sony, NEC, Fujitsu, and Panasonic 14 years ago is intense.
Back in 2007 I wrote a story pointing out that LCD TV manufacturers who claimed that they had new technology and more efficient factories than what the Japanese plasma manufacturers had, were set to dominate the 37- and 42-inch display market.
Back then the likes of LG and Samsung were rolling out seventh-generation factories to manufacture 42″ TV’s.
Their LCD strategies worked and the two became the top two TV providers.
Now it’s the Chinese who are stripping TV share away from Samsung and LG.
Recently Samsung and LG killed off in-house production of LCD TV panels with both LG and Samsung now outsourcing more production than ever before to Chinese Companies such as TCL.
While Samsung is killing off “QLED” LCD TVs LG is trying to push further into the premium OLED market up against TVs from Chinese Companies Hisense and TCL which are seen as being equally as good but significantly lower in price than what LG is offering with the LG Group desperately trying to shift LG Display production of OLED panels to PC’s automotive and commercial monitors in an effort to reduce their losses.
As part of a strategic shift, Samsung will gradually cease LED production by 2030 due to the competitive nature of the market and the expansion of Chinese LED manufacturing operations similar to what happened in reverse when LG and Samsung killed off the market for Plasma TV’s.
An early pioneer of the ‘super large TV’ market Samsung and archrival LG are now struggling to hold share with TCL stripping market share globally while Hisense is pushing into big screens and laser projection TV’s.
According to research Company Omdia, TCL has snared the #1 slot in the large TV market, with Samsung trailing behind them and Hisense in third place, as of Q2 2024.
Samsung introduced its first 98-inch 4K model in 2021 and expanded its range of 98-inch TVs to lower-priced models in 2023 and 2024.
Ironically, all of the Samsung 98-inch 4K models are manufactured by TCL CSOT who recently acquired the LG LCD plant in China with the Company also set to manufacture TV’s for both LG and Sony.
In 2025, Samsung is set to push through the 100″ barrier as consumer demand grows for extra-large TV’s.
Among the new range is set to be a 115 inch model.
Korean newspaper ETNews claims the new 115-inch LCD panel is set to be manufactured by TCL CSOT, while the 100-inch and 110-inch LCD panels will be manufactured by Chinese display manufacturer BOE.
In further shakeups Samsung whose share value is down 20% this year has restructured its non-core DS Division LED business
This business is responsible for LED modules for TVs, LEDs for smartphone flash, and LED modules for automobiles.
Samsung is also halting production of LED chips for lighting by the first half of 2026 and will exit the LED backlight business (for TVs) by the second half of 2026.
The final step will be to exit the automotive LED business by 2030.
Following intervention and support from the South Korean Government Samsung began a transition to OLED TVs in 2022 via a relationship with archrival LG as the Government moved to try and keep premium OLED TV manufacturing in South Korea.
After initially launching QD-OLED and later adding models based on LG Display’s WOLED panels both LG and Samsung are now working to push OLED TVs as being the premium TV display platform at the expense of “QLED” and “Neo QLED” models.
These TVs already use LCD panels from TCL, BOE, LG Display and other display makers after Samsung Display decided to terminate all production of LCD TV panels in June 2022.
Shakeup and change in the TV market are common and despite Samsung’s role as a pioneer and strong advocate for Mini LED technology the Company is not prepared to accept losses as consumer demand shifts claims analysts.
At the last two CES shows the business has pushed their Neo QLED TVs now the business is set to refocus their TV offerings with OLED set to play a key role in their offering along with a new TV OS.
During the Samsung Developer’s Conference last month Samsung announced that it was bringing the One UI interface to its Tizen OS TVs.
The Samsung OS skin is typically seen on the company’s smartphones, like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and wasn’t expected to release the TV version until 2025.
ChannelNews understands that they are now rolling out the One UI update to select TVs well ahead of projected release dates while LG is ramping up their WebOS in an effort to capture more consumer data from their OLED TV’s.
Ironically, Sony whose products are also manufactured by TCL has decided to invest in advance Mini LED screen technology with their Bravia 9 TV harnessing advanced new Mini LED backlighting system which it developed and manufactured in-house.
Currently Sony has just one new OLED TV with LD set to play a key role in future models.