Samsung: OLED TVs viable this year

Sasmung's 31-inch OLED prototype
Sasmung's 31-inch OLED prototype

Samsung has said that it believes producing OLED TVs could be viable during 2009, although it stopped short of saying that it will do so.

Daniel Lamberti, Brand Manager for Samsung Mobile, has re-iterated the company's desire to get involved with medium to large scale panels, stating that production capacity will double this year.

Although production costs are the current reason Samsung is giving for its lack of larger OLED TVs, it expects to reach the capacity to produce 4m panels per year this year, with that set to double again in 2010.

Coming soon: flexible OLEDs?

"Samsung envisages monitor, notebook and TV displays all being suitable for AMOLED in 2009, while in 2010 flexible displays will be commercially viable," says Lamberti on The Samsung Blog.

Samsung originally told TechRadar that it hoped to be releasing OLED TVs at CES in 2009, but it turned out that only LG managed to promise a new set to rival Sony.

Of more interest is the belief from Samsung that it will be able to commercialise a flexible display, with only Sony showing off the technology at CES earlier this year, and nothing from the Koreans.

However, it will likely be in smaller form-factor devices, so we'll wait and see if Samsung can be the first to really get the world interested in OLED.

Via The Samsung Blog

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.

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