The spokespersons of the two technology companies, Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp have announced on Tuesday that they plan to mass-produce OLED TVs in the following months. Analysts think the two Japanese brands will most likely have to face a tough competition as many other South Korean television manufacturers have replaced LCD TVs with the new technology, according to Reuters.
Sony launched the first OLED TV in 2007, but the production of the $2000 screens was stopped because of the recession period. Five years later, the Japanese company announced that they will resume their initial project, so by the end of the year they will compete with the most popular TV producers, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.
The South Korean enterprises have already announced that they plan to revolutionize the technological market by releasing 55-inch OLED televisions, as slim as 4 millimeters and endowed with sharper images. Given these circumstances, Sony and Panasonic will have to come up with truly innovative products if they want to defeat their rivals. Sony is not new to this technology as the Japanese firm has continued to produce OLED screens for high-end customers who could spend up to $26,000 on OLED screens.
OLED is said to replace the existing technologies in the future, so television sales will continue to increase in the following years. Analysts estimate that there will be near 2.1 million OLED shipments in 2015 as compared with 34,000 registered this year. These screens have already been used for smartphones and tablets.
Masayuki Otani, chief market analyst at Securities Japan, is afraid that Sony and Samsung might have waited a little bit too long until they decided to launch their new TVs. According to him, the overseas competitors have a head start that might give Japanese producers a hard time. He observed, too, that the OLED technology is going to be the mainstream and the only aspects differentiating products will be the size and the price of the devices.
Makoto Kikuchi of Myojo Asset Management thinks Sony and Panasonic will have to team up with other companies in order to be successful. However, they will not be able to draw short term earnings if they choose to make collaborations.
