South Korea's LG Eyes OLED Television Global Market Leadership
LG Electronics believes that its edge on flat panel TV technology could soon make it the biggest global player and dominate a market that has been witnessing flagging sales over the past two years.
The South Korean firm's bragging rights? Its 55-inch OLED television set and barely half-an-inch thick was adjudged as the best product among the gadgets that global companies unveiled in the Las Vegas Consumer Electronic Show at the start of 2012.
But the unit was priced beyond the mass market at $10,000 apiece, raising doubts on whether LG can finally give its perennial rival, Samsung, a really good fight starting year.
In an interview with Agence France Presse (AFP) over the weekend, LG's executive vice president for TV division, Ro Seog-ho, declared "there's a very high chance that we can win this game."
Mr Ro meant taking over Samsung as the global leader in TV sales and position LG in eating up a large portion of OLED TV sets being shipped worldwide, which the news wire said would hit more than two million units over the next four years.
But what exactly is LG's lead over its rivals, which also include Japanese biggies Sony and Panasonic, in the OLED technology race?
According to LG, the OLED technology delivers more well-defined images in a brighter screen but with less power consumption, plus the sexy form-factor that comes with the incredible thinness of every flat panel set.
The main difference for the company though, according to Mr Ro, is LG's advance breakthroughs in terms of producing more and cheaper TV units anchored on the core engineering design of OLED, which stands for organic light-emitting diode (OLED).
LG's 'white OLED', Mr Ro said, makes for clearer image rendering and the technology itself is suited for mass production and is ahead by at least two years over the company's nearest rivals.
"It means we can increase panel yield rate faster than them and eventually cut prices faster," the LG executive told AFP.
He added that by the time LG's competitors would have caught up, the company would have achieved its end goal, which is to establish a formidable margin in the global sale of premium television products.
The product lines include 3D TVs that do away with the special eye glasses and Smart TVs that allow direct access to the Internet and serves as a platform for a host of interactive functions.
LG is focusing more on the premium market segment as Mr Ro pointed out that the mainstream TV competition, meaning LCD and LED units, has been long the turf of older brands and lately by Chinese manufacturers of the popular home entertainment gadget.
Mr Ro is confident that it will take years for LG rivals to level the OLED competition and the company is looking to greatly capitalise on its headstart, which the LG official said could last for at least two more years.
That space, Mr Ro said, is quite enough for the consumer electronics maker to gain more grounds on its long-standing battle with Samsung, which obviously enjoys the upperhand at the moment.