Samsung's executive vice president, Ho Kyoon Chung, has said that he expects 42-inch OLED televisions to be on the market in three years' time.
According to Tech-On, Chung said that by 2010 the OLED panel market will be worth $3.7 billion (£1.8bn) a year.
Organic televisions
"OLED panels have opened the new era of organic optoelectronics," said Chung. "Not only displays but also new applications such as OLED lighting systems, organic electro-luminescent power generators and organic sensors will emerge in the near future.
"In the mobile display industry, the shift from monochrome to colour displays formed the first wave, the realisation of high-resolution TFT panels made the second wave and active matrix OLED panels will be the third wave," Chung said.
LCD and plasma under threat
Speaking at the FPD International 2007 Forum, Chung said that despite a slow start, OLED TVs will become cheaper and more popular in just a very short space of time.
"Following small panels used in 2007, 3.5 to 7-inch panels will be applied to ultra mobile PCs, for example, in 2008. Then we will realise 14, 15 and 21-inch panels in 2009 and large 40 to 42-inch full HD OLED TVs in 2010."
OLED (organic light emitting diode) television technology could ultimately replace LCD and plasma TVs in our living rooms. OLED panels don't require a backlight so they're very energy efficient and will be able to produce much deeper colours than LCD.
OLED prototypes are promising
Samsung isn't the only player in the OLED game. At this year's CEATEC show in Japan, Sony showed off a tiny 11-inch TV that was just 3mm thick, plus a 27-inch prototype using the same OLED technology.
For the moment, OLED technology is stuck with many of the problems which afflicted LCD in its early days. It's very hard to build OLED panels of any real size, and even small panels are very expensive to produce.
Toshiba too says it plans to sell a 30-inch OLED TV by 2009.
