According to reports from Korea and Taiwan, both Samsung Display and LG Display have decided to slow down their microLED business plans. The main reasons behind this are the high production costs of microLEDs and high competition which is seen to lead to low profitability.
Samsung Display will continue to invest in microLED R&D, but has delayed plans to expand production. LG Display has already reduced the size of its microLED R&D teams and is looking into deploying some of its microLED developers into the OLED side of its business.
This move by the Korean makers is not surprising. MicroLEDs have a promising, but it will take some years before the technology is ready to deploy in mass display segments such as consumer TVs or smartphones. Both LGD and Samsung focused mostly on large-area microLED TVs, and the market for these highly expensive displays is quite limited (some estimate it as under 2000 units per year at current price points).
It is interesting to see that display makers in Taiwan (AUO and Innolux) are still highly focused on microLEDs - if only because they have no alternative next-generation display technology and they do not have any real OLED production capacity. China-based developers are also not slowing down their microLED investment so far. As microLEDs represent a long-term opportunity, Samsung and LG can delay their plans while increasing their investments in OLED technologies.
