LG Electronics, Mini LED TV only second place?… Concerns about the impact of flagship OLED TV sales

Input 2021.02.24 06:00 | Revision 2021.02.24 08:22

LG QNED to sell from 75·86 inches in the US
LG “OLED is the best” passive in mini LED TV
Industry “LG QNED only needs to be ranked second for Samsung’s check”

LG Electronics, which said it would release a total of 10 types of mini-light-emitting diode (LED) TVs, first jumps into the market with 75·86 inches. Compared to its rival Samsung Electronics, which introduced 55 inches to 85 inches in the early stages, it is more passive. The industry analyzes that LG Electronics, which is focusing on light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs, is using a’second-class strategy’ that secures only a level of market share that can control Samsung Electronics rather than actively selling mini LED TVs.

According to LG Electronics on the 24th,’QNED’, a mini LED TV product line that will start selling in North America as early as April, will be released in 4K 75·86 inches (90 series) and 8K 75·86 inches (99 series) in the market. It is sold as a top-of-the-line model of’Nanocell TV’, a product line of LCD TVs, and is characterized by increasing brightness by using mini-LEDs that are smaller in size than existing LEDs in the backlight unit. High quality was achieved by adding quantum dot technology to the nanocell color film used in the existing nanocell TV.

QNED uses about 30,000 mini LEDs for 86-inch backlight. This is 10 to 15 times more than that of a typical LCD TV currently on sale with about 2000 LEDs for backlighting. As such, the screen brightness is brighter, so it has strengths in color expression. The number of local dimming blocks that play a very important role in rendering black on a TV screen is over 2500. It is five times more than a general LCD TV that uses 400 to 500 units.

However, LG Electronics believes that although QNED, a mini-LED TV product line, has excellent image quality, it cannot go beyond OLED. It has been emphasized several times that the TV with the highest image quality technology in existence is OLED. This is interpreted as a paving stone to contain Samsung Electronics, which has no choice but to introduce mini-LED TVs as flagship products due to the slow progress of quantum dot-light-emitting diode (QD-LED) development. In other words, the intention is to fix the priority of TV products in the order of’OLED-Mini LED-LCD’.

LG Electronics is also somewhat passive in sales of QNED, a mini LED TV. The QNED brand was introduced before Samsung Electronics, but the actual sales plan was delayed by a month or two from Samsung Electronics. The product size is also limited to 75·86 inches at the beginning of the release, unlike Samsung Electronics, which set a wide range of 55 to 85 inches. It is a so-called’second-class strategy’ that only needs to secure a certain level of market share without having to increase sales.

Another part of the marketing strategy is the name of the mini LED TV product line as QNED. QNED has been recognized as taking the acronym of’Quantum Nanolard Emitting Diode’, which Samsung Display is developing.

However, LG Electronics explained that it was taken from the initials of’Quantum Nanocell Emitting Diode’, which contains the technical characteristics of its own mini LED TV. An industry insider said, “LG Electronics named the mini LED TV as QNED was to beat Samsung Electronics, which tried to use QNED as a next-generation display,” and said, “It seems to be a marketing strategy to check both the current and future flagships.” Said.

However, despite LG Electronics’ intention, there are observations that mini-LED TVs will rapidly replace the current LCD TV market in the future. Market research firm Trend Force predicted that this year’s mini-LED TV shipments will be between 4 million and 5 million units, which is about 2% of total TV shipments. This is about 4 to 5 times larger than last year. Among them, Samsung Electronics is expected to sell more than 2 million mini LED TVs.