Samsung says it is not buying OLED panels from LG, claims QLED is better

Over the past few months, multiple rumors had claimed that Samsung is on the verge of ordering OLED panels from LG Display for its future TVs. However, the South Korean firm has clinically denied that it has taken any such step. The company has even claimed that its QLED technology is better than OLED technology for TVs.

Jong-hee Han, President of Visual Display (VD) business, had denied the rumors multiple times. Now, South Korean tech publication IT Chosun has reported that another official from the company said, “There is no change in the idea that our QLED TVs have better picture quality than OLED TVs. I’m trying to make it clear that the rumors are groundless,” during a phone call yesterday. “It is true that LCD prices are rising, and we are facing a difficult situation, but we have enough capacity to overcome as a No. 1 company,” he said.

It was being reported that Samsung might order 2-3 million OLED panels from LG Display and that it might launch its first OLED TVs sometime in H2 2021 or H1 2022. It was rumored that Samsung is taking this step due to lowering profits from its LCD TVs and rising competition from Chinese TV firms like HiSense, TCL, and Xiaomi.

It is widely believed in the display industry that Samsung spent too much money over the past decade in marketing against OLED TVs. Hence, the company is not too eager to enter the OLED TV market because doing so may disprove its previous claims about QLED being a better technology than OLED.

Samsung Display (which makes display panels) is switching from LCD to QD-OLED (its own version of OLED tech) and has invested a huge amount of money for this switch. However, it is rumored that Samsung Visual Display (which makes Samsung TVs) is against the idea and has denied buying QD-OLED panels from Samsung Display. Instead, the company is planning to switch from regular LCD and QLED to Mini-LED and microLED technologies.