LONDON—Omdia's latest Display long-term demand forecast tracker indicates that the demand for flat panel displays for TVs and other devices will grow by 6.2% year-on-year (YoY) in 2023 after slumping to below normal levels in 2022. 

Display demand in 2022  fell by 6.9% year over year, making 2022 the first year in the history of the flat panel display industry in which area demand recorded negative growth, the researchers said. 

Panels for TVs account for about 80% of the demand, Omdia said.

Omdia expects that softened inflation and slowing interest rate hikes mean that the plummeting demand for flat panel displays has bottomed out, however. That will help the industry rebound to more normal levels of demand by the second half of 2023.

Ricky Park, senior principal analyst in Omdia's Display research practice noted that there are signs that global inflation has slowed and the economy is bottoming out. "Panel prices and retail prices that have fallen for more than a year can stimulate consumer sentiment, especially the recovery speed of demand for ultra-large sized TVs, which have seen a sharp decline in prices,” he said. “This will lead to a fast recovery in area demand."

Omdia expects OLED TV displays will increase its market share by improving image quality and reducing price. The over-70-inch TV market is expected to grow by more than 15% from 18 million units in 2022 to 21 million units in 2023. They are expected to exceed 20% of the total TV display market in 2023 for the first time. 

TV display takes around 80% of the total flat panel display market and TV display demand recovery influences total flat display area demand forecast, the researcher said. 

If you're hoping to see big price drops in OLED TV prices over the next couple of years, it looks like you'll be disappointed. According to a report from Display Supply Chain Consultants (via The Elecand OLED-info), the two big makers of TV-sized OLED panels – LG Display and Samsung Display – will both stop spending on new equipment for building these screens in 2023.

This price of the best OLED TVs has fallen a lot in recent years, in no small part because of huge expansions in their creation – they've become more efficient and easier to mass-produce, and have become more popular as a result. But according to DSCC's report, that expansion won't just slow next year – it'll totally halt, with nothing at all spent on increasing production. 

That's likely to mean that the prices of the screens used in the majority of OLED TVs won't change much from now in 2023 or 2024. Now, the overall prices of the TVs could change depending on other factors (such as shipping costs), but the single biggest part of a TV is the screen, so that makes a huge difference to the overall price.

However, it's not all disappointing news: this actually sets the stage for new Quantum Dot OLED TV screens to close the price gap with regular OLED TVs faster than anticipated. 

QD-OLED screens are made solely by Samsung Display, and have only appeared in two TVs so far – the Samsung S95B and the Sony A95K – both of which earned rave reviews from us. However, the screens are very expensive to buy (much more expensive than regular OLED), and only comes in two sizes currently: 55 inches and 65 inches.

So when will there be bigger changes?

However, despite Samsung Display reportedly planning not to invest any more in QD-OLED production machinery next year, the company has already made huge strides in improving what it can do with its current machinery – and the DSCC report says there's more to come.

Having already dramatically improved the efficiency of producing QD-OLED on its current production lines (meaning each screen costs less to make), and introduced a 77-inch version of a QD-OLED TV screen, DSCC also says that Samsung should be able to create a thinner and simpler version of QD-OLED without spending more on new equipment.

It's possible that is related to Samsung's reported advances in producing blue OLED pixels – at the moment, multiple layers of blue pixels are used in QD-OLED screens to provide the light, but if that could be reduced to one, it would save materials and time, and so could bring the cost down further.

Because QD-OLED is still in its first year, all the advances Samsung Display has made on the tech recently have barely had a chance to register – so next, we might see more models at more affordable prices.

If the price of regular OLED stalls because of a lack of expansion and the price of QD-OLED is able to drop, the two technologies might become more competitive quicker than we expected.

The DSCC says there'll be no major investment in OLED TV screen production in 2023, but that this will pick up a lot in 2024… though most of it will come in one area: inkjet OLED production from a company named CSoT (which is owned by budget TV giant TCL).

Inkjet has long been the Next Big Thing in making OLED screens, because it's much easier than current options. As it sounds, it basically means a printer-like process is used to deposit OLED pixels onto the panel, which is far more efficient and much cheaper to set up than current 'masking' OLED manufacturing systems.

This is great news for the OLED industry becoming more competitive in the long term, because in the space of a few years we'll have gone from one single company (LG Display) making OLED TVs screens and controlling prices, to four: LG, Samsung Display, CSoT, and BoE, which is already working on its OLED facilities.

That means genuine competition, which is also likely to mean lower prices, particular  on regular OLED screens (only Samsung will be making QD-OLED for the foreseeable future) – though we may see some interesting differences in image quality, with several different production types being used.

However, if some of these advances won't start until 2024, then we won't see the fruits of their labor until 2025. QD-OLED will be able to start closing the gap sooner than that, though – it's going to be an interesting couple of years for OLED TVs.

This article originally appeared on TV Tech sister brand, Tech Radar. 

SEOUL—Perhaps inspired by Samsung’s foldable phones, LG is applying that idea to a television with a new design for a foldable OLED TV.

Designs from a patent LG recently filed in September with the Hauge International Design System for an ultrawide display that can fold up when not in use have been revealed, as well as some related artwork and renders.

The TV would be a six-segment display that would fold like an accordion and features rigid frames at the end that would serve as stands and include built-in speakers.

There are few additional details and no plans on whether this product will ever come to fruition.

TVT’s sister publication Tom’s Guide had the original story.