The world of energy harvesting is a strange one, with researchers trying to find ways to use movement, temperature changes, biochemical reactions, wheel motion, and a myriad of other everyday functions to generate small amounts of electricity that can be stored and used to power devices.  Of course the amounts of energy generated from regular motion are minute, so the repetitive nature of the collection mode must be high as does the efficiency of the energy harvesting device.  That said, one of the biggest problems with such concepts is that every day human motion does not fit that model, with general repetition rates far too slow to be useful.  The example often given is Usain Bolt, the fastest man on earth, is considered by scientists as a machine working at 5Hz, while most of the materials that can convert motion to energy need 100Hz to become effective.

But researchers at Vanderbilt University have developed a material that can harvest energy even at our sloth like human levels, giving rise to the hope that by just moving around, you could be generating power to charge a device.  The device, which was developed as an outgrowth of research on the response of battery materials to bending and stretching, is essentially a battery with the same material for the anode and the cathode, which means it cannot store energy as a normal battery would.  However, the voltage changes that occur in the device when it is bent or twisted can translate human motion into electrical current.  The material itself is only a few atoms thick and is made of black phosphorous, a room-temperature stable form of highly volatile white phosphorous, which acts like graphite and can be easily manipulated.  This gives it a significant advantage over the typical piezoelectric materials that are common in energy harvesting, but need much more motion to generate power, and generate at 5% to 10% efficiency, even at those higher motion levels.  The Vanderbilt material can generate 25% efficiency when the user is just sitting or standing, giving rise to the hope that one day Mom and Dad can lower their electricity bill if they attach Jr. and his basement buddies to their energy harvesting grid.
​
This is research, and while the material is thin enough to be impregnated into fabrics without changing their texture or look, lots of work still needs to be done to bring the concept to commercialization levels, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to charge your smartwatch while playing tennis, or charge your Bluetooth headset just by walking down the street?  Of course, we see those who are at 5% charge on their smartphones wildly waving their arms around while walking down the street, but what about building it into shoes or flags that wave in the breeze or even those weird giant tube people that car dealerships use?  The applications are enormous, with the ultimate look being the attachment of such material to the lips to generate oodles of energy from the never-ending chattering of high school girls on the subway…

Directly comparing Samsung’s (0056930.KS) QLED TVs and LG’s (066570.KS) OLED TVs is like comparing a fund that specializes in health care and medical against a fund that invests in South American conglomerates.  While they are both TVs, and look similar on the outside, they are very different on the inside, utilizing dissimilar technologies, and approaching the development of the device from nearly polar opposite staring points.  One is based on LCD technology, the same as what has been used since CRTs were booted from living rooms worldwide, with an additional boost from Quantum Dot materials that can enhance the color quality of such sets.  OLED TVs do not use LCD technology and generate light by stimulating organic materials that produce which produce light that is filtered through a color filter, one piece common to both TV sets.  The arguments pro and con for each should be left to experts like Displaymate, that perform detailed analysis of the physical and optical characteristics of all TV types, but are more often left to the wiles of TV brand marketing departments, which tends to obfuscate facts and statistics about both.

When it gets down to it however, the consumer decides based on what they see on the store floor, which could be the subject of another note, but picture quality is only a part of what gets a consumer to decide to go toward one type of TV or another.  Salesmen can make a significant difference, with their personal preference or a commission motivation driving their patois toward a particular type or brand, and of course, the output of the set itself makes a difference, but remember that this is a purely subjective decision category, with a huge number of likes and dislikes that can vary not only from consumer to consumer but from region to region (did you know TV sets made for the Asian market are tipped toward a ‘bluer’ tint while those for the North American market are ‘warmer’, with a more yellow/red tint).  Then there is price, which can be either a tie-breaker or an absolute, but it definitely plays a very important part in the final decision, as well as the marketing that the consumer relentlessly hears a multitude of times when faced with such a buying decision.

So, in the high-end TV space, essentially the only portion of the TV business that carries ‘premium’ margins, it all comes down to marketing and price.  Both QLED and OLED TVs look great to the average consumer, and whether the ‘mine is better than yours’ marketing really makes all that much of a difference is quite debatable, but consumers are driven by price and whether they feel they are getting a bargain, no matter whether the set is QLED or OLED.  This brings us to the fact that Samsung has decided, at least in the US, to cut the price of its QLED TVs to both stimulate TV sales, and show that their decision to back QLED over OLED is a correct one that consumers should also make.  Looking further, QLED materials should add $50 and $100 to the cost of a TV set, and have been on a declining cost path for the last 18 – 24 months as material capacity is increased.  OLED TV cost structure is a bit more complex, as using OLED materials to make a TV requires a new production fab, which makes for high initial cost, declining as production capacity and yield increases, and while both technologies are very different and have dissimilar characteristics, they are compared on price, just like generic TV sets, and to that end, Samsung has decided to cut the prices of this year’s crop of QLED TVs.
​
The chart below shows current Best Buy (BBY) prices (Northeastern US) for Samsung QLED TVs, before and after, with the rate of change.  While each model in a particular size category has its own characteristics[1], the reductions tend to be greatest for the more expensive models in each category, except 75”, where the $9,999 model received only a 10% price reduction.  Why Samsung made such a decision is unknown, but the cost of producing 75” TVs is generally higher that smaller sizes, and Samsung might be looking to preserve at least some of the premium margin carried for the larger sets, but Samsung’s TV division did not perform well in 1H 2017, and the company will be focused on driving unit volumes to reduce inventory levels for the next few months.  They want to enter the holiday season with fresh, lower cost inventory, that reflects what they believe will be lower TV panel prices, and are trying to set the stage for a better 2H, having to take near-term lower margins to get into that position. Of course, if TV panel prices do not decline further, things will not get appreciably better for the TV set business, but Samsung seems to be taking the proactive approach going forward.  Those waiting for price reduction on the new 88” QLED TV will have to wait as will those waiting for discounts on the LG or Sony (SNE) 77” OLED TVs.


[1] These are all 2017 QLED models designed for the North American market, with the primary differentiators being flat or curved screens, and a broad set of features (“family”) that is indicated by the 6 letter from the left in the model number.  The higher the number, the more features.

According to the Japanese press, Japanese panel producer Japan Display (6740.JP) is looking to banks and its largest shareholder, the INCJ (Innovation Network Corporation of Japan – a government funded organization) for additional financing of ~ $900m.  JDI has faced assembly plant closings in China, and continued losses as it tries to reinvent itself as its largest customer is seen moving toward OLED displays.  Japan Display has stated that it will purchase JOLED (pvt), another INCJ company, to enhance its OLED capabilities, but has postponed the closing of the deal twice thus far, with no date currently set, and continues with various forms of restructuring to bring the company back to profitability on a sustained basis.
​
Japan Display, once the premier LTPS display manufacturer, has fallen prey to the display industry’s massive investment in LTPS capacity, which gave brands much wider options toward choosing display producers, with Chinese LTPS oriented manufacturers gaining share against JDI.  As the smartphone market continues to transition toward OLED displays, Japan Display is left to scramble to develop its OLED capabilities in order to remain even a portion of its largest customer’s (Apple – AAPL) business.  Given that the development of OLED manufacturing technology has progressed far more quickly in South Korea, despite Japan’s early lead in developing OLED technology, they are playing catch-up to the rest of the industry, and a big step in OLED technology is likely the only way they can stay in competition with other OLED producers.  JOLED is said to have developed an OLED manufacturing process based on ink-jet printing, and while JDI continues to struggle to make the JOLED acquisition and remain in business while doing so, JOLED needs to be able to prove that the ink-jet process can be both commercialized and translated to high volume production.  The question remains how long banks and the Japanese government, through the INCJ, will keep JDI afloat, with the hope that they will gain some real traction in the OLED space, but it might be that the previous JDI management regime did not react fast enough to the rapidly changing display space to keep the company alive for a sustained period of time.