Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest TV maker, appears to be skeptical about producing its own version of organic light-emitting diode display TVs largely due to the nascent market.

Its sister firm Samsung Display CEO Park Dong-gun on Wednesday reaffirmed that the company was working on larger OLED but had no immediate plans to produce the panels. 


“We do not think larger OLED has enough potential although it is attracting a lot of attention,” he said in an interview.

At a business meeting last week, he also said, “We have no confirmed plans for production but are continuing research work.”

While its rivals such as LG Electronics and Panasonic have jumped into the OLED TV race, Samsung is still gauging its marketability, focusing more on improving its liquid-crystal display TVs, including the latest quantum dot TVs

Compared to LCD, OLED boasts perfect blackness and color contrast but its tricky production raises production costs and TV prices.

LG, which has poured resources into OLED TV in recent years, is expected to see sales triple to some 940,000 units this year from last year.

In the meantime, Samsung Display is a dominant player in smaller OLED with more than 90 percent market share. Demand for smaller OLED is soaring as it is more widely used in smartphones and other mobile devices.

“Considering its strong LCD TV sales, there is no reason for Samsung to enter the OLED market where LG is the market leader and owns many technology patents,” said an industry source who declined to be named.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)