It is reported that although the US advertising agency, the National Advertising Agency (NAD), recently asked LG to stop its so-called "perfect black" and "infinite contrast" and other false advertising, its OLED TV does have The best black effect.
But what matters is not the quality of the picture, no matter how TV manufacturers like Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and Philips claim to be in the high-end, especially in the eyes of consumers. This comparison of OLED and QLED is reminiscent of the competition between PDP and LCD a decade ago.
However, OLED technology may have a more serious underlying flaw, making it impossible to truly become the best display technology for television: aging.
Slow aging process
The company countered that they could last longer in normal viewing conditions; but the well-known TV rating agency Rtings found that LG's OLED TVs burned 4,000 hours after they had been tested for a month. The screen phenomenon is far faster than the time it takes to promote the screen.
More likely to be more similar reports, whether it is LG Electronics' own OLED TV, or OLED display panels purchased by LG Display from companies such as Sony, Panasonic and Philips. The more OLED panel products are shipped, the more aging of display panels will appear: in 2013, LG Display's large-size OLED panel shipments were only 200,000, compared with 1.7 million last year.
If this is a problem that can be overcome in time, then everything will be fine; but LG's ongoing firmware update indicates that this problem cannot be solved at the root or production level. According to reports, LG Display's recent firmware update has made it possible to change the light output of the screen more aggressively when switching between bright and dark content. Sony, which purchased OLED panels from LG, also introduced firmware that darkens still images.
So, does the gambling war taken by LG help it gain market share? After all, the market is the most convincing, and data is everything.
According to relevant data, Samsung, which is the most important TV market in the world, has a market share of 36% and LG accounts for 15.2%. Vizio ranked third with a market share of 13.4%; Sony ranked fourth with a market share of 11.5%. As of August this year, Samsung's market share reached 34.3%, LG was 15.2%, Vizio was 11.4%, and Sony was 10.8%.
However, if you focus on the high-end market, things will become interesting. In 2017, for TVs with prices over $2,500, Samsung's market share was 34.3%, Sony's was 33.3%, and LG was 30.3%. But as of August this year, Samsung controlled 43.6% of the market, Sony 32.9%, LG 22.9%. It is not difficult to find that LG's market share has been falling. According to statistics from the third week of September 2019, Samsung's market share has further increased to 55.9%, Sony's 23.1% and LG's 20.5%. This trend was reflected in the decline in LG's third-quarter home entertainment sector's profits.
In the field of TVs larger than 75 inches, the gap is particularly obvious. In 2017, Samsung's market share was 50%, Sony's was 35.6%, and LG was 8.4%. By August 2018, Samsung's market share had grown to 57%, Sony was 25%, and LG was 9%. In the third week of September 2019, Samsung's market share further increased to 68.7%, Sony was 16.7%, and LG was 9.6%.
Black vs brightness
Another noteworthy is the different marketing focus of LG and Samsung. LG focuses on the dark black of its OLED, while Samsung highlights the brightness of its QLED, and the two sides continue to war on the contrast factor.
Brightness works great in real viewing scenes because people don't watch TV in dark environments. For shoppers, the first time they saw a TV in a brightly lit mall, not a dark room, might be brighter than their home environment. Samsung has always stressed that the test of the dark room can not reflect the real life, it may be referring to this. This is especially true when considering the consumer buying model.
All in all, LG must show at the CES show next year whether it can launch OLEDs on a large scale and solve the problem of persistent aging. For Samsung, the continued decline in LCD prices will give it a market advantage; MicroLED TV, which does not use organic materials, will also maintain its competitive edge with its major competitors (LG).
