[Observation by Ding Tech] Those familiar with the television industry must have noticed over the past two years that the enthusiasm for OLED TVs has been steadily declining. Here, "enthusiasm" refers not only to consumer interest but also to industry momentum.
Samsung has never been a player in the OLED TV arena, while TCL and Hisense, two major players, have shown little interest in OLED TVs. Core supporters like Sony, Skyworth, and Xiaomi have also displayed a noticeable "passive" attitude in the past two years, leading to a continuous decline in the industry momentum of OLED TVs.
From the consumer perspective, the OLED TV market has seen a significant downturn. Data from Lutu Technology shows that global OLED TV shipments in 2023 were 5.48 million units, a decrease of 20.6% compared to 2022, far exceeding the overall market decline. In the Chinese market, OLED TV shipments in 2023 were only 106,000 units, accounting for 1.9% of the global OLED TV market, a decrease of 3.1 percentage points from the previous year.
It's worth noting that OLED has been promoted in the Chinese market for over a decade, making such results quite disappointing. So, why has OLED TV lost its appeal? According to Ding Tech, there are two main reasons:
Firstly, LGD's OLED promotion strategy has "missed the mark".
Before Samsung entered the market, LGD was the only company globally capable of providing large-sized OLED panels, and LGD's OLED promotion strategy directly determined whether the OLED TV market could expand. However, in retrospect, LGD made a serious "mistake" in promoting OLED, which was the failure to establish a truly open "alliance system".
LGD and Samsung Display were in opposition for a long time and did not form a united front in promoting OLED TVs. Although there were complex reasons behind this, LGD should undoubtedly bear greater responsibility. Furthermore, LGD not only failed to unite with TCL and Hisense but also caused its previous important allies Skyworth and Xiaomi to lose patience. At one point, LG was almost the only one supporting the market, which inevitably led to a continuous decline in the OLED TV market.
One of the main reasons LGD failed to form an effective OLED promotion alliance is its lack of a broad strategic vision. For example, the large-sized OLED panel industry should not be monopolized by a single company. If LGD could support more panel companies to enter this market, it would certainly create greater industrial synergy. The reason why LCD defeated plasma to become the mainstream of the display industry was mainly due to the openness of the LCD industry, while the plasma industry led by Panasonic was more closed. Not only was the upstream not open enough, but LGD's openness to downstream TV terminal companies was also insufficient. Imbalanced panel resource allocation and inflexible product pricing led to a situation where only a few companies supported the market for a long time.
Secondly, Mini LED has formed a strong "substitution effect".
In the past two years, Mini LED has been the hottest display technology in the TV industry and has become a technology that almost all TV companies are actively deploying. In other words, unlike the weakening industrial support for OLED in recent years, Mini LED has gained the widest industry support.
In the global Mini LED TV market, Samsung and TCL are the core forces. In 2023, Samsung's Mini LED TV shipments were 1.98 million units, ranking first with a market share of 46.6%; TCL ranked second in shipments, with nearly one million units, accounting for 22.2%. In addition, Hisense, Xiaomi, Skyworth, and others are also actively promoting Mini LED TV products. For example, the Hisense E8N series, which will be launched on April 17th, is a high-end Mini LED TV equipped with the ULED X full-scene AI computing picture quality platform. Skyworth's Q9E wallpaper art TV launched at AWE 2024 is a Mini LED TV jointly developed with BOE. Xiaomi's Redmi is about to release a 100-inch giant screen new product priced at only 8999 yuan, which is also a Mini LED TV.
According to data from Louvre Technology, while OLED TV shipments declined by 20.6% year-on-year, global Mini LED TV shipments increased against the trend, growing by 24.7% year-on-year, with the Chinese market seeing a staggering growth rate of 140%. Moreover, in 2024, Mini LED TV shipments are expected to surpass OLED TV for the first time. It is predicted that Mini LED TV shipments will reach 6.59 million units in 2024, exceeding the 6.4 million units of OLED TV shipments. By 2025, Mini LED TV shipments are expected to exceed 10 million units.
Technically, Mini LED and OLED each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but due to the expanding "circle of friends" supporting Mini LED, and with the push from companies like TCL and Xiaomi, the price of Mini LED TVs continues to decline, resulting in a strong overall "replacement effect" for OLED.
Source: Ding Tech Web
It should be noted that in the past two years, there have been some "new trends" in the OLED TV industry. Most notably, the leadership in the development of OLED TVs has gradually shifted from LGD to Samsung. Ding Tech Web has previously reported that Samsung's OLED business has grown rapidly, with shipments approaching the million-unit mark within two years. This year, the annual shipment volume of OLED TVs is expected to exceed 2 million units, and by 2025, it is even possible for Samsung to surpass LG and become the "big brother" of OLED TVs. With Samsung at the helm, it is believed that they will have more experience and capability than LGD in continuously expanding the OLED TV market. (Ding Tech Web original, reproduction must indicate the source: Ding Tech Web)
