In 1921 the hot consumer electronics product was radio, but not the kind of radio you think.  It was HAM radio, aka amateur radio, where folks put odd looking antennas outside of their houses and spun tuning dials for hours just to speak to someone they did not know in a distant state or foreign country.  Two brothers, Theodore & Milton Deutschmann, decided to open a store in Boston to supply said ham radio equipment, and named it RadioShack (pvt) after the wooden structure that contained a ship’s radio equipment.  The company transitioned to more consumer-oriented products in the early 1950’s, much under its own private label brand (Realistic), but after expanding to nine stores and a mail-order business, the company began to have financial problems and was purchased by the Tandy Corp (TLF) for ~$300,000 to supplement Tandy’s other hobbyist business, which was leather working.
Tandy cut the vast number of nuts and bolt type SKU’s that the Shack offered, found cheaper private label suppliers, required that store managers had a stake in the stores they ran, and refocused the stores to cater to those looking for lower priced products.  By the 90’s the company was the largest manufacturer of personal computers and, for a short while, was the largest global electronics retailer.  Unfortunately Tandy decided to divest its computer manufacturing business and replaced much of its private label products with 3rd party brands while opening 17 big box stores (Incredible Universe).  Four years later it sold the few profitable IU stores in the chain and closed the rest. 
By the late 1990’s much of the electronic components that RadioShack sold became available online and RadioShack was slow to enter the online game, but did catch the cell phone wave in the mid-2000’s.  While it dominated the retail cell phone space for a while, a long string of unsuccessful ‘reformations’ and management changes took their toll and the company gained the title of the retailer with the worst customer experience for six consecutive years. RadioShack stock continued a slow decline through the 2010’s and the company tapped into a $250m loan in 2013 to survive.  Unfortunately the conditions of the loan limited the company from closing more than a small number of unprofitable stores and sales continued to decline through 2015. In February of that year the company defaulted on its loan, the stock was delisted, and the company was forced to file for bankruptcy.
A month later a two-part offer for the company from General Wireless (pvt) was approved ($160m for stores and $26m for brand name).  The deal included a partnership with Sprint (S), who became a co-tenant at many RadioShack stores, however two years later a Chapter 11 was filed and many of those stores became Sprint-only locations.  Much of the RadioShack inventory was liquidated at that time.  General Wireless actioned the RadioShack brand name for $17m, leaving it with the company’s warehouse, the authorized dealer network, the e-commerce business and 28 stores.  In 2020 the RadioShack IP, dealers, and online operation were sold to Retail Ecommerce Ventures (pvt), a buyer of defunct brands (Pier 1, Stein Mart, Modell’s, Linen’n Things, etc.) with the intent to use the name on a cryptocurrency platform where one could exchange other crypto for $RADIO tokens.  It was not a success.
During the first bankruptcy, Grupo Unicomer (pvt) purchased the RadioShack brand for use in Latin America (excluding Mexico) for $5m and in 2023 it purchased the global (70 countries) RadioShack brand.  For the first time in many years RadioShack had a presence at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show to revitalize the brand and attract a new generation of customers.  They have also partnered with a number of retailers who offer their products in-store and online, including Amazon (AMZN) and WalMart (WMT).  The company currently has 17 product categories leading to over 400 products and will add 200 more this year with a long-term target of 1,000, including 3rd party products, all under the company’s “Low Product Pricing Strategy”.
RadioShack was never known as a high-quality CE retailer, at times, their products were considered junk by many, but it is nice to see the name resurrected by a company large enough and well-managed enough to potentially breathe new life into the name.  Whether the concept and brand can survive in what is now a very different CE world remains a question, although Unicomer has been successful with the brand in Latin America for years.  Give it a year to 18 months and we will know if RadioShack will prosper once again or fade away forever.

​In a never-ending battle with China, the US has continued to tighten export control rules concerning semiconductors, particularly high-performance GPUs that are used for AI.  The US government has been working to close any loopholes that might allow companies to skirt the restrictions and are constantly updating the rules to be more inclusive, further limiting China’s ability to purchase these essential parts of Ai infrastructure.  Nvidia (NVDA), the primary producer of such devices, has made a number of modifications to its processors in order to meet the specifications that the government has imposed and continue selling in China, yet invariably those specifications are tightened, forcing Nvidia to lower the performance of processors it is able to sell to Chinese customers.
In Nvidia’s most recent quarter China represented ~15.4% of sales, making it an important customer and one willing to pay a premium to obtain such GPUs, however it is expected that over the next few days the Biden administration will put in place a new trade mandate that will not be based on performance as much as customer location, separating the globe into three tiers.  While Nvidia and the SIA are adamantly against this new rule set and are appealing to the Biden administration not to put them into effect, especially considering the possibility that the new administration might modify or reduce their limitations, there seems to be a last minute urgency by the Biden administration.  Here’s how the new rules are expected to work:

• Tier 1 - The U.S. and 18 allies (including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, French Guiana, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, and the U.K.) will have 'near-unrestricted access' to advanced AI processors developed in the U.S as long as they do not install more than 25% of their processing capacity outside of Tier 1 countries or more than 7% in any single Tier 2 country
• Tier 2 – These countries face a cap of 50,000 GPUs purchased over the two-year period between 1/1/25 and 12/31/27, although companies in Tier 2 countries can gain a higher level if they comply with US regulations and are validated.  The countries in Tier 2 are primarily those in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Mexico, and Latin America
• Tier 3 – These countries (Belarus, China, Iran, Macau, Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Nicaragua, Libya, Somalia, and Iraq), will face a near total ban, but details as to the level of performance that will be allowed has not been made available yet, although they will likely tighten the performance specifications further. 

While it would not affect semiconductor companies directly, the new rulers are thought to include more detailed restrictions on AI companies that wish to host large models outside of the US.  The hosting and model restrictions are thought to completely restrict Ai companies from exporting the trained parameters (weights) of their models to Tier 3 countries, while hosting in Tier 2 countries is allowed if US security standards are met.  Potentially there could be limitations on open-weight models (those that make the model’s internal structure available publicly) if they are fine-tuned for specific applications even in Tier 2 countries, where they would have to be licensed by the US government if the tuning requires significant computing power.  Should these direct model rules be implemented it could slow global AI development and deployment, while giving the US a technical advantage over others, even our allies.  Depending on the scope of the AI limitations we expect an intense focus on how to circumvent such rules if implemented by Tier 2 countries.
It is questionable as to whether there is a reason to put new rules into effect just days before the new administration is installed as the likelihood of material changes is high.  While the public face of the Biden administration was steadfast as to restricting China’s semiconductor and Ai growth, we expect the Trump administration to use existing or new rules as a lever rather than a mallet, not only with China, but also with allies, particularly Taiwan and Singapore, that are either very substantial semiconductor importers or are major producers.  That said, what the public sees and what is really being negotiated could be even less transparent going forward than it was previously.  

Earlier this week we noted that LG Display (LPL) was shifting its OLED stack configuration from a 3-stack structure to a 4-stack structure.  As shown in the comparison below, LGD has removed the middle emitter stack, which was a combination of red, yellow/green, and green emitters, and added a full green stack and a full red stack.  In theory, this gives more control over stack output, allowing the individual color (RGB) peaks to be higher, leading to higher color volume[1], and narrower peaks for each color.  Typically, narrow peaks reduce the amount of adjacent color that the emitter produces, which allows for more energy to go to the precise color intended, without requiring more power.
We note that while the stack comparison simplifies the structure of the OLED displays to make them easier to understand, the complexity of these displays is considerable and the precise nature of the control necessary to produce each layer is quite daunting, as the layers are typically between 10nm and 80nm thick, depending on the type of layer and the material chosen.  We also note that stack engineers and scientists have a large number of materials to choose from for each layer, making the number of possible combinations astronomical.  As an example, below is a list of some of the materials that can be used for just the Hole Injection layer (you can’t get these at the local pharmacy), so it can be seen that with eight structural layer types and 17 layers, even this generic 3-stack model is incredibly complex.  Even limiting the number of choices to 5 materials for each structure, the number of possible combinations are over 390,000 and there are typically many more than 5 choices of materials for each structure.  While the layer-by-layer details for a 4-stack panel have not been disclosed by LG Display, we expect at least 5 more layers will be needed, adding to process time and cost.
MTDATA - 4,4',4''-Tris(N-carbazolyl)-triphenylamine
CuPc - Copper (II) phthalocyanine
TCTA - 4,4',4''-Tris(carbazol-9-yl) triphenylamine
HATCN - 2-(4-Biphenylyl)-5-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole
TDAPB - 4,4'-bis[N-(1-naphthyl)-N-phenylamino] biphenyl
PEDOT: PSS - Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate)
   
Panasonic (6752.JP) is the first TV brand to be using these new panels, and while they have not explicitly stated that the panels are from LG Display, it would be hard to imagine otherwise, but the company has not indicated when the three sizes (55”, 65”, 77”) will be released, other than some time in 2025, nor have they given price information, but we trust they are coming this year.  LG (066730.KS) has stated that their 2025 G5 OLED TV line will contain “Brightness Booster Ultimate” technology, and while they have not explicitly stated that those sets would be using the 4-stack OLED panels, we make the same assumption.  That said, LG’s G3 line contains 48”, 55”, 65”, 77”, 83”, and 97” models, so it is possible that some might not use the 4-stack panels this year.
Again, while this might seem a small matter to those outside of the display space, it will push forward the quality of OLED displays and intensify the competition between OLED and LCD (Mini-LED in particular).  Large panel OLED displays have been criticized for not being as bright as LCDs, so any increase in brightness increases the value of large panel OLED displays, making them a better choice for brands going forward.  Hopefully, the actuality of the 4-stack approach meets the promotion it will get in the TV space, especially with consumers later this year, making the added manufacturing cost worthwhile.
 


[1] Color volume is a measure of the display’s ability to reproduce a wide range of colors at various brightness levels, essentially a combination of hue (color), saturation (how much white is mixed in) and brightness (luminence), which is the intensity of the color.

​Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) relies on its DS division (Semiconductors) to generate operating margins that offset the lower (10% or less) margins of its DX division (Phones, Networks, TVs), despite the fact that DX generates ~60% of the company’s sales, against DS’s 37% to 43% of sales.  When the DS division is operating correctly, as it did for most of 2022, it can generate ~30% of company sales but with an operating margin between 22% and 35%.  Unfortunately, the semiconductor business has not been nearly as good for Samsung as it has been for those not as highly focused on the memory market, and based on Samsung’s just released guidance for 4Q, things actually got worse rather than better in 4Q.
Samsung guided the 4th quarter to 75 trillion won ($51.4b US), down 5.1% q/q but up 10.7% y/y.  This is 3.2% below consensus.  Operating profit guidance was worse at 6.5 trillion won ($4.5b US), down 29.2% q/q but still up 130.5% y/y, pointing out how bad things were a year ago.  Operating margin will come in at ~8.7%, against 11.6% last quarter and 4.2% a year ago, but the guidance for operating income was 27.5% below consensus.  Samsung does not give detail as to the divisional breakdown until its call later this month, but it is thought that the delay in getting its High Bandwidth Memory (HBM3E) qualified at Nvidia (NVDA) as the reason, although we, as did others, thought that the semi division would have done a bit better, even with the delay.  Not a good start for 4Q in the CE space.
That said, LG Electronics also gave 4Q guidance, and while sales were 22.78 trillion won ($15.6b US) which is fractionally up q/q and in line with consensus, operating profit, at 146.1 billion won ($100.4m US), far lower than the consensus of 447.9 billion won ($307.2m US) and over 50% lower than last year’s 4Q.  LG also does not give details but did indicate that the rise in shipping costs and one-time costs associated with the company’s treasury stock retirement program, along with global economic uncertainties, all contributed to the shortfall.  On the positive side LG’s home appliance segment was the biggest contributor to sales and operating profit.

The rivalry between South Korean panel producers (Samsung Display (pvt) and LG Display (LPL)) and Chinese panel producers has been ongoing for a number of years as Chinese producers have pushed South Korean producers out of the large panel LCD business.  As it became obvious that Chinese producers had the advantage of significant government construction and operating subsidies, South Korean producers began shifting from LCD display production to OLED production, a relatively new technology at the time.  While Chinese large panel producers eventually won the battle for LCD display domination, South Korean producers went on to establish OLED as a higher quality technology, particularly for small panel displays.  Not to be outdone, Chinese panel producers have been building OLED capacity to challenge South Korean dominance in the OLED space, and while there are a multitude of CE brands that use OLED displays, the top of that list is Apple (AAPL).
Apple’s transition from LCD to OLED starting with the iPhone X, released om November 3, 2017, is expected to continue for the next few years as they migrate much of their product line to OLED.  Samsung Display and LG Display have been the primary small panel OLED suppliers to Apple but are continuingly being challenged by China’s largest panel producer BOE (200725.CH), who has made some inroad with Apple, supplying replacement displays for earlier iPhones and as a 3rd supplier for some later models.  While BOE has had its own issues with Apple, they continue to challenge SDC and LGD, along with a number of smaller Chinese OLED producers, and SDC has gone to the US ITC alleging patent infringement, with BOE, and other Chinese OLED producers (Chinastar (pvt), Tianma (000050.CH), and Visionox (002387.CH)) responding by challenging the validity of those patents in US Patent Court.
As the ITC investigation continues (target date 3/17/25) the patent challenges also continue, and the US Patent Review Board has ruled on one of the 4 patents that Samsung claims were infringed upon.  The ‘683’ patent, filed by Samsung Display on 11/13/17 in the US and 3/6/12 in Korea makes 15 claims concerning OLED pixel structure, particularly Samsung’s ‘diamond’ pixel structure shown on the left side of  Figure 1.  The PTAB has decided that 10 of the 15 claims made in the original patent are not valid, while leaving 5 intact.  Samsung will have the opportunity to appeal that decision. 
Limiting the broad scope of a patent is not an unusual outcome in patent review cases, but narrowing the patent will also narrow the ITC’s investigation scope, making SDC’s case a bit harder, and could open one of the other patents included in the investigation to further scrutiny as it is essentially a continuation of the ‘683’ patent mentioned above.
All in, the validity of the ‘shape’ characteristics of the pixels (polygon, Octagon, or non-quadrilateral) as specified in the ‘683’ patent, remain in effect, which is a key point in terms of the infringement, but spacing between pixels, size, and arrangement, the other ‘683’ claims, are invalidated, reducing the points that SDC can cite in the ITC investigation.  We expect SDC will appeal the PTAB decision, but this ruling and any potential appeal will likely push out the final ITC decision and the battle for OLED supremacy will continue in both the consumer space and the courts for another year.  That’s how lawyers put their kids through college.

[Note: The US Patent Office considers a patent unpatentable when the difference between claimed subject matter and prior art would have been obvious at the time of invention by a person having ordinary skill in the art to which subject matter pertains, where ‘ordinary skill’ means a degree in electrical engineering, material science, physics, or similar disciplines, along with 2 years of professional experience working with display design, including OLED displays or an equivalent level of skill, knowledge, or experience.]

​We are always a bit skeptical when it comes to CE industry estimates, as inclusions and exclusions can have an enormous effect on totals.  When such estimates come from industry associations, we also have to take into consideration the potential positive bias members who supply the  information might bring, balanced against the richness of such industry data.  The Consumer Technology Association produces a US technology industry revenue estimate based on their analysis of over 200 hardware products and services, and while we don’t have inclusionary data, we present it as incremental information for 2024 and 2025.
The forecast for 2025, based on the accuracy of the 2024 final estimate, calls for a 3.2% increase in US Consumer Technology spending in 2025, comprised of 2.6% hardware growth and 4.6% software & services growth after 2024’s 2.5% growth (1.1% hardware and 5.2% software & services).  The optimism for the hardware segment, which comprised 66.2% of total spending in 2024, is based on the replacement cycle for hardware purchased during the COVID pandemic, the ending of support for Windows™ 10, and, of course, AI, as well as new wearable form factors.  While software & services are expected to see less growth in 2025 than in the previous year, the main driver is also AI, under the heading of AIaaS, or AI as a service.

​That’s the good news, however the CTA also commissioned a study that attempts to quantify the impact of incoming President Trump’s proposed tariffs, using two scenarios, one with a 10% across the board tariff on all goods imported into the US and a 70% tariff on all Chinese imports, and the second based on a 20% general import tariff and a 100% Chinese product tariff.  While we expect that whatever tariffs are actually put in place will be far more complicated than these scenarios, at least these ‘best’ (?) and ‘worst’ scenarios set the bar as to the impact they will have on various US CE product categories.
The study predicts that the greatest decline in demand, in either scenario, would be felt in the laptop and tablet segment, along with monitors and gaming consoles, where the best-case scenario generates a 40%+ decline in demand.  Other product categories, again in the best-case scenario, see declines from 26% (smartphones) to 14% (desktop PCs), while the worst-case declines run between 22% (laptops and tablets) to 7% higher than the best-case scenario for Li-Ion batteries.  We note that these are very difficult calculations to make, and we expect have included a relatively small, if any, contribution from the negative psychology that such tariffs might foist on US CE consumers, which we expect will further dampen demand as near-term inventory pricing gives way to tariffed inventory as the year progresses 
That said, we expect brands to enter the CE space in 2025 extremely cautiously, as planning production against the potential variability of US CE demand is an unenviable task.  More likely, that hesitancy will lead to a weak 1Q, with the hope for a better 2H, as country-by-country tariff deals are worked on by the new administration.  We expect any resolution on trade with major partners will sound good when they are announced but will have to be carefully monitored as the year progresses to avoid a large ‘catch-up’ 4th quarter or missed targets, so we give credit to anyone willing to take a stab at tariff impact, knowing that the scenario could change in a minute and likely will.

Lenovo (992.HK) did it.  They have been showing a rollable laptop at various shows for two years, teasing reviewers with a ‘demo’ or ‘prototype’ and an unanswered question about when it will become a real product.  At this year’s CES show Lenovo has actually taken those demos and made them into a real product that you can buy, or will be able to sometime in 1Q.  When we say ‘rollable’ here, we mean a laptop with a 14” display (2000x1600 resolution) that can extend itself upward to become a 16.7” laptop in only a few seconds.
This slight-of-hand is accomplished by pulling the bottom of the flexible OLED screen, made by Samsung Display, inside the device when in 14” mode and having motors slide the screen upward as the internal portion is pulled into view when needed.  Just to get this mechanism to work smoothly, as those who have seen it in action say it does, is a feat of engineering and we give kudos to both the design and engineering staff at Lenovo, but there is also a practical side to this device.
First, there are lots of things to go wrong.  Foldable display develop creases at the fold and while the display is not rolled up inside the chassis when not in use, it sits at an angle to the 14” screen, a point where a crease is likely to form.  With motors, rollers, and mechanicals to expand the display come new components and new issues when used in real life, and while Lenovo says the laptop is rated for 30,000 openings and closings and 20,000 up and down screen movements (11x per day for 5 years), real-world usage is usually more rigorous than lab testing that is typically done in a controlled environment. Oh, and we forgot to mention that this all comes with a price, actually $3,500, quite a bit more than the specs for this 14” laptop would normally cost, but you do get to show your friends how watching the screen expand and listening to the sound of the motors calms that nervous tic that has developed since you spent this month’s rent on your new laptop.
A number of reviews we have seen are praising this device because it provides a 50% increase in screen space.  This comes from the idea that when the device is in expanded mode you can see 50% more of the lines of code you are working on or 50% more of the document you are editing.  However, when calculating screen area one finds that the ‘closed’ screen has 89 in2 of area and when ‘open’ has 108.1 in2 of area, or 21.5% more screen space.  It seems that Lenovo has taken some liberties with how it describes the display, not surprising given the need to find a reason for consumers to pay up for this first-of-its-kind device.  But again, we applaud Lenovo for having the guts to take the plunge into the world of rollable laptops (Note that LG’s (066570.KS) rollable TV is no longer being produced), but as a practical device you are paying quite a bit more than 21% for the extra 21% of screen space.
Here's a video of the device being opened and closed.  The important stuff is in the first 1:25.

​https://youtu.be/f2T-Yu9KEAk

​ Smartphones are incredible feats of technology, squeezing innumerable parts into a rectangle typically under 20 in2 and ~ 1/3 of an inch thick.  Most smartphone owners rarely see what is on the inside of their phones, making purchase decisions (hopefully) on matching specifications to their use profile.  But inside those rectangles, packed in like sardines, are literally hundreds of ICs and other components, along with a battery, display, and assorted cameras.  

There are those that relish the thought of purchasing smartphones and then taking them apart, piece by piece, in order to quantify structure and cost.  Such a group is TechInsights, who are known for their detailed teardowns of various CE devices.  They have been kind enough to afford us a detailed look at one of their smartphone teardowns, which we summarize below.
The phone being disassembled here is the Sony (SNE) Xperia 1V, a device released in July of 2023.   Sony is not a major smartphone brand but is known for the high quality of their phones, so the example below should be a guide as to what to look for in a high-end smartphone.  We note that when the Xperia 1V was released, it sold for $1,399.  The phone weighs 188 grams, runs on Android, and has a 6.48” OLED display, along with four cameras, and runs on a Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
While the greatest share of the BOM is the broad category of integrated circuits (45.7%), the camera subsystem captures 23.7%, due to the fact that it covers 4 cameras and associated electronics, lenses, etc.  The display subsystem, which is a single 6.48” OLED display and a touchscreen, along with a polarizer and cover glass (total of 70 components), is next at 7.5%, followed by non-electronic parts (frame, etc.) at 7.2%.  More relevant to the investment community would be the breakdown of the total component types and the IC category on a branded basis.  As can be seen in the table below, the IC category carries the largest cost share by a large margin, putting significant weight on the brand share shown in the table that follows.  

​Qualcomm supplies not only the phone’s Application and Baseband Processor (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2), but also supplies the audio codec, a number of power management chips, saw filters, RF tuners, and a number of multi-function front-end modules.   We note that Sony’s share is higher than usual, as it uses its own branded components wherever posible, with SK Hynix supplying both DRAM and NAND.  While the details of the lower level components are less important and carry relatively small type or brand share, it is interesting to note that the phone contains 7 PCB/flex boards which contain, in total, 1,708 components, all packed into something that fits into your pocket.  While we knock smartphone brands for releasing new phones each year that are almost duplicates of what came before, it is a great feat of engineering that smartphones work at all, given the number of components that could fail.  Credit where due.

​There are many ways to produce OLED displays. Small OLED displays can be produced using a red, green, and blue stripe to produce a pixel that can reproduce millions of colors. Some create small OLED displays by patterning RGB OLED material dots in a variety of configurations, each with its own positives and negatives, but large OLED displays, such as those for TVs or monitors are another story.  LG Display stacks a number of OLED materials on top of each other across the entire TV and uses a color filter to create colored sub-pixels.  Samsung Display does something similar, but uses different OLED materials and then uses quantum dots to convert the light into colors.
While the techniques for creating small and large OLED displays are different, they both have to compete with other display technologies, particularly LCD and its more recent kin, Mini-LED TV.  OLED TVs tend to have richer colors and higher contrast than LCD TVs but they tend to be less bright than LCD TVs, and are more expensive to produce, so large panel OLED producers are always looking for ways to improve brightness.  There are micro-lenses that can be used to pull more light from the display and dozens of other techniques that will work toward improving brightness, but the most important focus for improving large panel OLED display brightness are the emitting materials themselves.
OLED material producers are constantly working to improve characteristics, and while new OLED materials with better characteristics are always being developed, brightness improvements are often a tradeoff against material lifetime or color accuracy and cost, yet the competitive nature of the display business forces OLED display producers to keep making improvements to counter the competition.  One way of doing such is to use more OLED material.  LG Display’s original WOLED displays were formed of three stacks of OLED materials in layers.  Each stack was composed of blue and yellow/green emitters.  That combination produced white light, which was then passed through a color filter of red, green, and blue phosphors, each removing the opposing colors.  The prolem with this method is that it is subtractive and results is considerably less light reaching the viewer.
Over time a red emitter was added to the stacks to improve the quality of the white light, but in order to maintain brightness after the color filter, a blank space is left on the color filter, allowing a white sub-pixel to be added to each pixel.  While this improved the overall brightness, it also washed out some of the colors.  LG Display has now decided to add a fourth stack to its upcoming displays by separating some of the emittercolors in the stacks into there own stacks.  This concept adds additional emitter material, which adds to the light outrput (brightness) and allows for more control over the ‘tuning’ of each layer.
Samsung Display (pvt) has a different method for producing large panel OLED displays.  They coat the entire panel with OLED emitter materials, in the same way LGD does, but the combination of materials produces blue light rather than white light.  The blue light is passed to red and green quantum dots, which shift the blue light to red and green, and  a space allow the blue light to pass through unchanged.  While there is some loss from the qualntum dot conversion, they convert rather than filter, so a white pixel is not needed and the colors tend to be truer.
That said, LCD displays are based on backlights and OLED displays are self-generating, so regardless of the method used, OLED displays tend to be less bright, and driving them harder with a higher current just reduces their lifetime, so Samsung Display is doing the same thing as LG Display and adding an additional stack of blue  light generating OLED material to its QD/OLED displays, starting with its smaller OLED monitors.  Consumers will benefit from the extra stacks from both producers, as will the OLED material suppliers, although the uptake will not be overnight, however the bigger question will be how the additional stack will affect the price of the displays.  OLED emitter materials are expensive so we expect producers will have to eat the cost at the onset, but if the concept of adding stacks makes enough difference that consumers are more comfortable with OLED, than it will be worth the cost.  We expect the answer will take at least a year to surface, and while the idea of adding stacks might seem nuanced to the average user, if it is able to increase the brightness of an OLED display by 20% or 25%, it will make a big difference in the battle between OLED and LCD over time.