Samsung Targets To Sell 1.5M QLED TVs As LG Dominates OLED TV Market

Samsung Electronics’ TV division has reportedly set its sales target for its quantum dot-based light emitting diode (QLED) TVs this 2018. Meanwhile, LG Electronics is said to be continuing its domination in the OLED TV market this year.

Sources told Korea Herald Monday that Samsung has internally set a goal of selling 1.5 million units of its QLED TVs in an attempt to secure the top position in the global premium TV market. The move is seen as Samsung’s way of being optimistic despite the fact that it is struggling in the TV sector.

“Samsung’s target sales volume for the QLED lineup is 1.5 million, a notable increase from last year’s 1 million,” an industry source was quoted as saying by the South Korean news outlet. “By selling more of these expensive larger-size TVs than before, Samsung wants to raise the average selling price of its total sales volume.”

Samsung has cut its annual TV sales volume from around 50 million to somewhere between 41 and 42 million units. In spite of this, Samsung is hoping to increase its visual display unit’s revenue by selling more of its premium TVs. “The strategy is to raise its revenue by concentrating on selling super-sized TVs despite the decrease in the total sales volume,” a Samsung official said.

The same official shared that Samsung is anticipating a stronger demand for TVs that are over 75 inches. Hence, it predicts it could sell around two million super-sized TVs this year. The company has strategically slashed the shipment prices of the latest Q series TVs for the U.S. market.

An industry watcher has a different view on Samsung’s new strategy though. “It seems like Samsung had been agonizing about the prices. While trying to cover the QLED TV’s weakness that it cannot represent the black color as realistically (as OLED), the company has set the prices lower than OLED TVs to sell more,” he said.

Meanwhile, LG Electronics’ TV business is believed to continue dominating the OLED TV market this 2018 by increasing the production of its large-sized OLED TVs to three million units. The figure is significantly higher than the two million units it manufactured a year prior.

DigiTimes has learned that LG Display is providing two million OLED panels to LG Electronics, for the company’s own OLED TV lineup. It is shipping 500,000 panels to Sony, then the rest of the panels will be sent to Chinese TV makers.

Industry sources told The Investor that LG Display will start supplying OLED panels to Chinese TV manufacturer Hisense in the second quarter of 2018. Hisense previously focused on LCD TVs only, but this year it wants to jump on the bandwagon of making OLED TVs after learning of the increased market share of OLED TVs.