Samsung Display’s (pvt) QD/OLED display technology has faced some significant challenges.  Developed to bring Samsung Display into the large panel OLED business, which has been dominated by LG Display’s (LPL) WOLED panels, there seemed to be some skepticism from SDC’s parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS).  We expect some of that skepticism came from low initial yields for QD/OLED, with Samsung needing a reliable source of high volume production before committing to the technology, but SDC persevered and refined production processes to more normalized yields.  Samsung Electronics adopted the technology in 2022 with 55” and 65” TV models, their first large panel OLED offerings since abandoning large panel OLED technology in 2013 and has maintained QD/OLED’s presence with additional sizes since then.  However with relatively limited production capabilities (~750,000 TV sets/year assuming 75% yield), Samsung seems to still be wary of relying solely on QD/OLED technology for its large panel OLED line and has purchased WOLED panels from LG Display to augment its large panel OLED offerings.
Quality does not seem an issue, in fact QD/OLED has been lauded for its color purity, color volume and higher peak brightness than WOLED displays, but despite these positive points parent Samsung still does not seem to have jumped into the QD/OLED pool deep-end and is offering both QD/OLED and WOLED (from LGD) to TV consumers, in some cases without disclosing which technology they are getting.  That said,  it seems that QD/OLED has found a home, and one that Samsung Electronics  seems to be in sync with; monitors, high-end monitors in particular.  Gamers, who look for high quality reproduction and rapid response time have been impressed with Samsung Display’s QD/OLED monitor product and a number of monitor brands have taken to QD/OLED for their flagship gaming monitors.
A quick look at Amazon (AMZN) or Best Buy (BBY) shows just under a dozen brands with at least one QD/OLED monitor offering, with sizes ranging from 27” to 49” and prices ranging from $589 to $1,285.  Considering that you can buy a 27” LCD monitor for under $100 and a 27” OLED monitor for under $500, QD/OLED monitors are certainly considered high-end, with most labeled ‘gaming monitors’ specifically.  Companies like MSI (2377.TT) and ASUS (2357.TT) offer quite a few QD/OLED models, along with more standard OLED and LCD models, while Samsung, maintains the lead, recently releasing the first 27” QD/OLED gaming monitor with a 500 Hz refresh rate (that unusually high refresh rate is particularly attractive to gamers who thrive on being able to see rapid screen movements without lag).  With this new high refresh rate QD/OLED monitor and other recent 27” QD/OLED entries, QD/OLED is expected to increase its share of the 27” OLED monitor market from 32% last year to 47% this year.
While OLED monitors overall are still a small part of the general monitor market, roughly between 1.4 and 1.5m units out of between 150m and 155m, over the last few years, QD/OLED has become the standard bearer for high-end gaming monitors, and their share of the OLED monitor market is expected to increase from 68% last year to 73% this year.  With  only one 30,000 sheet/month QD/OLED fab, SDC can either produce ~700,000 QD/OLED TVs or ~3m+ monitor panels.  With large panel OLED (TV) growth relatively slow and OLED monitor growth increasing, the likely higher per unit profitability on monitors than on TVs, it would seem that QD/OLED has found a new home.  With considerable room for QD/OLED technology improvement that can widen the gap between WOLED and QD/OLED, it seems a more comfortable home than the technology battles that rage between LCD, Mini-LED, QD, and WOLED in the TV space

​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.

​TV brands are notorius for aggressive marketing, and that sometimes leads to marketing that is on the edge of being deceptive.  Last year Samsung added a number of models to its OLED line that used a technology that was significantly different from Samsung’s own QD-OLED display technology.  These sets were, and still are, based on WOLED technology, and purchased from LG Display (LPL), who has been using that technology for years, while those based on Samsung’s QD/OLED technology function completely differently.  Samsung has said little about the fact that the company markets both technologies as OLED line, but does not specify which technologies are used in each of the company’s three OLED lines and various OLED TV sizes.  In fact, certain models and sizes can have different technologies based on the location where purchased, without the customer knowing which technology they are purchasing., and while Samsung says it guarentees the quality of all of its OLED TVs, if one is looking to purchase a QD/OLED Samsung TV, they could wind up with something else.
Of course, Samsung is certainly not the only one who plays these marketing games and with the announcements of new 2025 TV lines at CES, it seems that LG (066570.KS) has declided that product names do not necessarily mean what they seem.  LG has been marketing its high-end LCD TVs as ‘QNED TVs’ for a number of years, which implies that they are quantum dot enhanced (the Q in QNED), yet it seems that this years QNED TV lines are not quantum dot enhanced but rather use software to enhance color reproduction and contain no quantum dots.  Consumers, who assume that QNED still means quantum dot enhanced, will find no quantum dot films, bars, polarizers, or color converters in their new LG LCD TVs, despite the fact that they continue to be sold under the QNED name.
It seems that in November of last year Hansol (014680.KS), a Korean specialty chemical producer and supplier of quantum dots for displays to both South Korean display producers, filed a complaint with the South Korean FTC alleging that a number of TCL’s (000100.CH) LCD TV sets, which are labeled as ‘QD’ models, do not contain the elements necessary for quantum dots.  While TCL denies the claim, they are being investigated under false advertising statutes. 
All in, every time a TV brand tries to slip something past consumers, it erodes both individual brand trust and trust in the CE space overall, giving consumers another reason to hesitate when making purchases.  With a number of TV technologies available to consumers currently, decision-making has become far more difficult than just a few years ago, and brands that keep things simple for consumers will likely maintain a steady user base that will return in each cycle.  When we spend time in retail stores listening to consumers speak with salespersons about TV buying choices, it becomes evident that most are buying based on price, and are taking the word of the salesperson or something they read on the internet in terms of the technology, so even the hint that they might have made a bad decision once the set is home can cause the consumer to abandon that brand forever.  It is hard to imagine that a salesperson could not make a case for or against quantum dots, WOLED, QD-OLED, or Mini-LED when trying to close a sale, so it would seem that there is little point in trying to hide the facts from consumers, but that’s our opinion, not that of brand executives or marketing teams…

We have previously mentioned a potential decision process at Samsung Display (pvt) that needs to be made if the company is to expand its QD/OLED production capabilities at its Asan, Korea fab.  The QD/OLED fab, the company’s first, has a capacity of 30,000 sheets/month, which limits the total available capacity that can be produced for the QD/OLED display product.  SDC has two primary QD/OLED TV panel customers, parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), and Sony (SNE), both of whom have active retail consumer QD/OLED TV products .  Sony has two currently available models, a 55” and 65” but withheld new TV model announcements at CES in order to focus attention on other products, while Samsung Electronics has the same size models (2022 series) but has announced it will add 49” and 77” TV models this year.  SDC also produces 34” QD/OLED displays, which are used in an Alienware (DELL) QD/OLED monitor and a 49” QD/OLED display that will be used in Samsung’s upcoming 49” QD/OLED monitor.
Samsung Display has said little about its plans for expansion, after facing serious yield issues in the 1st half of 2022, which limited SDC’s ability to deliver displays to both parent Samsung and Sony.  This led to such a small number of displays being delivered to Samsung Electronics that Samsung was unable to prominently feature the technology in its 2022 TV lineup, and the sets were under promoted for much of the year.  As the year progressed, SDC was able to solve the yield issues and increased deliveries, but the TV environment remained weak, which we believe limited Samsung’s desire to increase marketing dollars and left Samsung Display with questions as to the future of the technology.  Toward the end of the year, SDC’s yield improved to the point that they were able to lower the panel price to Samsung, and there was then a bit of hope that Samsung would more fully back the product in the back end of last year as it made the consumer price point more attractive and boosted sales.
While Samsung nor SDC has revealed how many QD/OLED units were produced and/or sold last year, we expect, while disappointing overall, the price points reached in 2H made the product attractive to consumers and Samsung became more interested in using QD/OLED as a part of its TV line-up going forward, but given that Samsung ships 40m to 50m sets each year, shipments of QD/OLED TVs represented roughly 1% of total shipments, leaving the product in limbo as to its place in the Samsung 2023 TV lineup.  That said, there was considerably more Samsung traction for QD/OLED at CES this year and the company indicated that it would be adding 77” and 49” models to the line this year.  In order to make the QD/OLED product significant enough to take a real place in the TV line, we expect Samsung must be able to bring shipments to between 4% and 5% of total TV units, or between 1.8m and 2.3m units this year.
We believe SDC was able to produce ~1m units last year, although they produced less, and while they have brought yields to over 90%, they would be limited to under 2.2m units at full capacity for the 2023 year, leaving little room for Sony, Dell, and other potential customers, along with safety stock.  That has led us to expect SDC to announce that it will expand production , building out additional capacity, although no such announcement has been made.  However a number of rumors have been circulating in South Korea indicating that Samsung Display will be increasing capacity at the QD/OLED Asan plant from the current 30,000 sheets/month to 45,000 sheets/month during the year, which we assume would be co-located with the existing lines.  Based on our timing and capacity estimates, we believe this will enable SDC to produce ~2.5m units, enough to justify parent Samsung’s increasing product support with a path to a more significant place in the 2024 TV product line
As SDC is currently the only producer of QD/OLED technology, it is up to them to produce quantities that make it worthwhile for customers to support the technology, so SDC must balance the need for capacity against the cost of that capacity and the risk that a weak macro environment will weigh on overall TV shipments this year.  A line-by-line expansion makes considerable sense given that the QD/OLED process is a bit less complex than typical RGB OLED and we assume that there is already sufficient TFT backplane capacity at the existing fab, keeping the cost of the expansion relatively low.  This would imply the installation of a new 15k line, with the major tools being an open-mask deposition tool and QD ink-jet printing capacity that could be fit into the existing fab structure.  While there is considerable conjecture here, the risk of such an incremental expansion is far less than a greenfield project, even if it were done in an idle fab shell.  We expect SDC to say little until such a capacity increase is up and running smoothly, but both the timing and the level of risk fit the parameters necessary to keep the QD/OLED display product line active and growing for SDC.

Samsung had some trouble pricing its inityial release of its quantum dot/OLED TV last year, originally listing the 55” and 65” models at $$2,400 and $3,500 respectively, prior to their April release, however the final pricing at release was lower for both, at $2,200 and $3,000, indicating the companywas still trying to best realize the most attractive price points, both from a profit perspective and from the consumer’s perspective.  As the QD/OLED concept was new for consumers it was up to Samsung to establish a point where these new sets could be placed in their TV line-up, but at the time Samsung Display (pvt), Samsung’s display affiliate, was having problems producing the  displays, with yields below 50%, and with Samsung Electronics targeting between 45m and 50m sets to be shipped for the year, such low yields meant that Samsung would have little reason to market sets that had such a small impact on the overall TV line.
Samsung Display, knowing without the support of its parent, having only Sony (SNE) as a 2nd customer for the TV panels, pushed its manufacturing lines to solve the yield problems, which began to see improvement around mid-year.  With yields improving, Samsung could justify the QD/OLED product line, and while it was still a small part of the entire Samsung TV line, the volumes were increasing at SDC and the potential for the QD/OLED line was finally acknowledged.
The problem however was that the combination of Samsung’s lack of marketing, weak overall TV set sales, and worsening TV panel pricing, left the QD/OLED sets in a netherworld, unrecognized by consumers, despite very favorable technical reviews.  Samsung seemed to recognize that they had a choice between a massive advertising campaign and setting a more attractive price point, and given the fact that even with the improving yields SDC had relatively limited display production capacity compared to other TV set modalities, the latter was chosen and the price of the sets was reduced.
While the price on Samsung’s website for both sets did change, the price on Amazon (AMZN), particularly those from 3rd party sellers, was much more telling and makes obvious the price point at which the sets became attractiuve to consumers, as shown in Figure 5.  While some of that volume can be attributed to improving yield at SDC, it seems that by October the price points (~$1,500 for the 55” sets & ~$1,890 for the 65” sets) had been reached and sales improved significantly,  We note also that during the earlier part of the year, Sony’s share was increasing and in September both Samsung and Sony had equal shipment share, but while Samsung continued to search for a more compatable price point, Sony did little to change the price of their QD/OLED sets, and share declined rapidly, hitting a low of 11.3% in November. 
We expect Sony’s purchase targets from SDC were set early in the year and the improvememnt in SDC’s yield did little to change that, with Samsung Electronics getting the bulk of the increasing shipments, but the chart makes it convincing that such a steep increase in QD/OLED shipments was directly influenced by the price, especially as it leveled off when the increases occurred.  3rd party pricing on Amazon does not always reflect list or discounted pricing om brand sites, but it seems a better indicator than Samsung’s own ‘brand’ pricing, which did decline from the initial $2,200 & $3,000 to $1,500 and $2,000 during the holidays last year (up slightly since), so even with the vaguries of 3rd party pricing on Amazon, it seems obvious that Samsung found the price point it needed for the QD/OLED sets to compete with other TV set brands.
The question remains however, wher=ther the relatively small number of QD/OLED displays that can be produced by SDC will be enough for parent Samsung to truly support the technology as a viable part of its TV product line.  Samsung has indicated that it will also be producing a 77” QD/OLED model this year, which is a size format that can be shared with 49”/50” displays cut from a single sheet, so we would expect to se additional QD/OLED panel sizes later this year, but most important would be the OK from both SDC and Samsung Electronics concerning the expansion of caapcity for the QD/OLED process, and that is a hard decision to be making during the weakest part of the yearly CE cycle.  Hopefully that decision has already been made and suppliers contacted if such capacity could be put on this year, but until SDC makes such a commitment, QD/OLED will remain a small part of Samsung’s TV set line.

​Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) is expected to add a 77” model to its current QD/OLED TV models as it continues to improve yield at its first QD/OLED fab in Korea.  We expect Samsung to show the new size to potential customers at CES in January, and possibly make an announcement to the general public about its availability.  Samsung was particularly low-key when it introduced the initial QD/OLED sets in January of this year, likely due to the low yields that affiliate Samsung Display (pvt) had been seeing during the early days of production, and while the intro of this new size might see a bit more enthusiasm from the company, SDC’s capacity is still limited to one fab, which does not support Samsung’s need for higher volumes that would allow QD/OLED to become a substantial part of the Samsung TV set line.
That said, we expect that the decision regarding potential QD/OLED capacity expansion will be made soon, and while the TV set business is facing the same economic wet blanket that is covering much of the CE space, the ultra-large TV space, where the 77” model would fall, continues to show y/y growth.  While the commitment to additional capacity during a weak CE cycle is a risky one, Samsung Display has made such bets before, and while the decision could be postponed for a quarter or so as the global economy struggles with inflation, we expect SDC will convert existing but idle capacity to QD/OLED in 2023, .
Samsung needs a large panel OLED TV offering to compete against LG Electronics (066570.KS), and while Samsung has considerable offerings that are LCD, Quantum dot enhanced LCD, and Mini-LED/QD, the progress on Micro-LED commercialization is still out of the price range of rank and file TV buyers.  Samsung has priced its QD/OLED sets well, and we would expect the 77” model to be priced ~$3,000 initially, but expect the more steady-state price range to be between $2,500 and $2,700 90+ days after the release, making it a viable competitor to LG’s “C Series” OLED TV.  Samsung seems to be warming up to considering the QD/OLED line as a meaningful part of its overall TV line, but until a capacity expansion decision is made, we expect the Mini-LED/QD line will be the promotional favorite heading into next year. 

Recent measurements taken by a reputable source during a demonstration and comparison of Samsung Display’s (pvt) QD/OLED display technology and that of LG Display’s (LPL) WOLED display technology revealed a set of comparisons that showed superior results for SDC’s QD/OLED displays.  That said we have to qualify the results somewhat as the tests were not made on the displays themselves but on TV sets using such displays.  The QD/OLED set was a Sony (SNE) A95K, a $3,000 set ($2,500 for the 55” model) and the comparative set was an LG (066570.KS) C2, a $1,700 set ($1,300 for the 55” model).  Both are 4K UHD sets with 120 Hz refresh rates, with the Sony set boasting a “Pixel Contrast Booster” and “XR Triluminos Max™ XR Smoothing”, systems that process the signal to make it “more pleasant to the human eye at all brightness levels”, while the LG set has EVO, a system that combines an enhanced OLED emitting stack and an AI processor that “…make EVO brighter than similar sized conventional LG OLED models”.
After one wades through the marketing, the sets were tested with a handheld colorimeter, which is a device that measures the color palette of displays, using a sensitivity model that is the same as the human eye, so different than an absolutely technical evaluation, such as might be done by a spectrometer, this device reports the brightness the way we might actually see it.  As these sets use a variety of systems to ‘enhance’ the color gamut, the panel itself is not being tested but the set in its entirety, and settings for those enhancements should be at default levels, although that is not always the case at demonstration events and in retail situations.  With those caveats, the data is shown in Figure 1, with the Sony (QD/OLED) as the left bar and the LG (WOLED) as the right bar for each primary and CMYK color.
The charts shows that the QD/OLED set produces higher values for each color, with red, yellow, and magenta being the most significant, with white being similar, and likely unnoticeable to the average user. While again, we caution that these measurements are after set enhancements and not the panels themselves, so the readings and comparisons are influenced by both the panels and the associated set electronics, but they represent a bit more incremental information about Samsung Display’s QD/OLED panels and help to validate SDC’s claims of superior color reproduction.  Samsung Display is expected to go into mare detail about the improvements they have made to their QD/OLED panels at CES in early January, but the average buyer would likely only care if the sets themselves were visibly different enough to justify the newer technology, or if the price differential were unusually large.  We do note that the Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) QD/OLED TV sets, which were not measured here, cost $1,800 for the 65” set and $1,500 for the 55” set, far closer to the prices of the LG WOLED sets than the more expensive Sony models.

As we have been tracking TV set pricing for Samsung’s (005930.KS) 8K and 4K Mini-LED/QD and QD only sets since their release in May of last year, along with this year’s models, we can get a good picture as to where Samsung set pricing is relative to premium TV set pricing.
Samsung has eliminated a number of last year’s models from its website, particularly the top-end (900 series) 8K mini-LED/QD sets, (the 85” model had a price of $5,000 on our last check) some 4K mini-LED/QD sets (85A) and some quantum dot only sets (80A).  Most are still available on Amazon (AMZN) and a few other sites, but at much higher prices than where they ended on Samsung’s site.  More importantly, there was relatively little discounting on the remaining 2021 models over the last month or so.
That was not the case with the 2022 models, where discounting heading into November was very heavy.  The six 8K min-LED/QD sets offered this year saw a 15.7% drop over the last 55 days (9/9 to current), the 12 4K mini-LED/QD sets saw a 12.3% decline, and the QD only sets (2022 only) saw an 8.7% decline, while all 4K sets combined saw a 10.7% decline, and the value of the 2022 sets on a price/in2 of surface declined by 39.4% so far this year.
This puts 33 of the 36 sets in the 2022 mini-LED/QD or QD only line at their lowest point this year, with the 3 that are not at their lowest point all being 98” sets that have remained at $15,000 since they were released.  Looking at Figure 1, it is obvious that TV set price reductions have begun earlier this year than last and while this year’s year-end prices might be closer together than current prices would indicate, we expect they will be lower given the economic situation this year. 
With Black Friday only 25 days away, we expect Samsung to continue to offer more aggressive discounts this year to entice customers who are facing a much weaker economic scenario than last year.  The TV space overall has already been facing a difficult year as we have noted in the past, but while brand shipment/production expectations have declined as the year progressed, primarily in the 2nd half, more recent cuts seem to indicate that TV brands have come to a point where they have to choose between reducing prices to gain unit volume or trying to maintain margins on lower unit sales.  Samsung has recently cut its shipment/production expectations by ~12.5%, and given that they are the largest TV set producer globally, we expect they are indicative of what other brands are contemplating.  If we were to apply the same reduction that Samsung recently made and applied it to all of the other brands, the result would be shown in Figure 2 ‘current column.  Note that some brands will not see cuts that large while others will see worse, so the ‘current’ column is an illustration, not an estimate.  We expect actual 4Q results to be modestly better than shown.

​Samsung’s QD/OLED TV (55” model) has seen another price drop to a new low of $1599.99 ($1597.99 on Amazon (AMZN), putting it down 27.3% from its initial price of $2199.99, and its most recent price of $1791 on Amazon.  The 55” model has declined to $1699 recently, but has now eclipsed that low.  While the 65” model has declined 33.3% from its initial $2999.99 price on the Samsung website, we cannot verify any lower price on Amazon as it is available only through 3rd party sellers.
Samsung Display has been said to be increasing its QD/OLED yield, as we have previously noted, giving the company a bit more pricing flexibility and production volume so parent Samsung Electronics could be trying to increase volumes to make the QD/OLED line look more like a substantial part of the overall TV line, although our less optimistic scenario would be an excess inventory issues similar to what has been plaguing much of the CE space.  As a new product and one with which consumers are unfamiliar, we still question whether parent Samsung is ready to adopt the technology as a mainstream product, which will drive the decision making process at SDC as to whether they will begin to build out additional QD/OLED capacity, as we doubt without the full support of Samsung Electronics the decision to expand capacity would be made.

We have mentioned that Samsung Display (pvt) has been aggressively working toward reducing the cost of its QD/OLED panels, which currently represent its only large panel OLED competition to LG Display’s (LPL) WOLED displays, which are the dominant form of that display mode. As LG Display has been mass producing WOLED large panel displays since 2012 and Samsung Display has been producing QD/OLED displays for less than a year, LGD has the cost advantage, especially from the perspective of making process refinements that would reduce production costs.  That said, SDC’s process, both for the TFT layer and the OLED layer are different than those used by LG Display, which makes direct process comparisons a bit like apples and oranges.
The TFT process steps used for QD/OLED, which are similar in that they use the same photolithographic processes as would be used for WOLED displays, but require more mask steps to create the structures needed to drive the QD/OLED display.  This makes the process slower, more complex, meaning more chance for issues, and more costly.  SDC has been working toward reducing the number of mask steps in order to reduce the overall QD/OLED production cost.
Considering the amount of time SDC has been in actual mass production with the QD/OLED process, as is typical of new display production processes, yields started out very low, with more than 50% of the displays having to be scrapped, but in recent months SDC has indicated that yields have improved significantly, first to 75% and more recently to 85%, a very significant improvement.  That said, it gets progressively harder to make yield improvements as yields increase, as process improvements tend to be smaller, and SDC’s goal of bringing yield up to 90% by year-end will likely take as much or more effort than the improvement from 75% to 85%.  One  way this can be done is by using MMG (Multi-mode glass), a process by which different size panels are processed on a single Gen 8.5 sheet, rather than all being of the same size.  This can improve the substrate efficiency (reducing wasted substrate), although it can take more time to process.
The goal of all of these process and yield improvement goals is to lower the overall cost of the QD/OLED panels to give them a better chance to compete against LG Display’s WOLED panels and Mini-LED LCD panels from a variety of panel producers, particularly to gain favor with parent Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), whose potential deal to purchase 2m OLED panels for a new Samsung OLED TV line with LG Display fell through.  This leaves Samsung with only the relatively small number of QD/OLED TVs it is able to purchase from SDC, which barely makes a dent in its overall TV line.  If SDC is able to bring down the price to a point at which the panels become more attractive to parent Samsung Electronics, SDC will be able to justify expanding production capacity for QD/OLED in 2023/2024.  However if they are not able to bring down the QD/OLED panel cost sufficiently, we expect Samsung Electronics will lose interest and focus its attention on Mini-LED, quantum dots, a micro-LED in 2023/2024.
OMDIA has made some projections as to the cost of producing QD/OLED panels at SDC, which indicates how aggressive the SDC goals are.  If they are met, they will bring down costs to or below those of the WOLED process, and since the cost of WOLED panels was the reason for the failure of the Samsung/LG Display OLED deal, they will become quite attractive to Samsung Electronics.  The goal is to reduce the cost of panel production from 1H ’22 by 40% by year-end, which would also represent a greater than 60% reduction from the cost a year ago, and while we cannot confirm that the OMDIA estimates are the same as those used by SDC, they would seem to be getting the panel costs to or close to a competitive price point.  Not an easy job for SDC and not a lot of time to do it, but a decision about adding new capacity must be made soon if capital is to be allocated and equipment is to be ordered, especially given the relatively long lead times for more specialized tools so the clock is ticking.