According to recent upstream and downstream industry chain information, Samsung Electronics may abandon its 70-inch segment Micro LED TV production plan. This decision made the entry of small-size Micro LED TVs into the home market another bumpy ride.
Technology and market scale factors constrained
It is reported that, as the most high-end series of Samsung Electronics, Micro LED TVs are planning to expand from the commercial market to the home market. According to the original plan, Samsung Electronics will produce 70-inch Micro LED TVs in 2022. Now, after canceling this size segment, Samsung still retains the 89-inch, 101-inch, 114-inch Micro LED TV launch plan, these TVs are for the home market.
In December last year, Samsung released its first 110-inch Micro LED TV for the home market, priced at 170 million won (about 920,000 yuan). It is understood that Samsung originally planned to increase the production line, prepare to extend the product structure below 100 inches, and continue to introduce more sizes of Micro LED TV products.
This time, why did Samsung simply give up the 70-inch size segment? Rong Chaoping, senior research manager of Ovi Revo, told a reporter from China Electronics News that Samsung may have two reasons for making this decision.
He said that, first of all, from a technical point of view, although the size of the 70-inch Micro LED TV has been reduced, it still needs to use the same number of LED pixels as the 110-inch, which also means that the pixel pitch is smaller. This will make the process more difficult, and the cost of the TV will continue to increase.
It is understood that the increase in pixel density will lead to a decrease in yield. When a certain pixel of the entire panel is defective, the repair cost is even higher.
Secondly, from the perspective of market size, Micro LED TVs have a small market size due to their high prices. There are not many high-end home TVs with 100 inches plus on the market. Rong Chaoping said: "100-inch plus Micro LED TVs are used as personal home theaters, but there are already OLED high-end TV products in the 70-inch plus home market, which are also lower in cost and price than Micro LED TVs, so Even if the 70-inch plus Micro LED TV is mass-produced, it is difficult to compete with OLED in price."
There is a long way to go to popularize Micro LED TVs
For a long time, the industry has generally paid attention to the popularization of Micro LED TVs.
"Currently, the popularity of Micro LED TVs is facing huge price and cost challenges." Rong Chaoping explained to a reporter from China Electronics News. On the one hand, the industry chain has yet to mature. The degree of equipment standardization is low, and upstream and downstream participating manufacturers need to be enriched. On the other hand, the mass production of Micro LED TVs still faces many thorny problems. For example, the mass transfer technology used in Micro LED TVs has yet to mature, the product yield is currently very low, and the production process is complex and other issues have led to high production costs. As a result, the product price is expensive.
At present, the price of large-size TVs of different technical routes is very different. It is understood that Samsung's 110-inch Micro LED TV is priced at 170 million won (approximately RMB 920,000), while the 88-inch 8K OLED TV produced by its competitor LG Electronics is priced at 47 million won (approximately RMB 250,000). The price of 83-inch 4K OLED TV is relatively low at 10.9 million won (about 60,000 yuan). In addition, 98-inch LCD TVs cost more than 20,000 yuan, and 100-inch laser TVs are more than 10,000 yuan.
It is understood that in terms of production, the current annual shipment of Samsung TV is about 50 million units, but the proportion of Micro LED TV shipments is less than 0.001 percent , which is about 500 units.
