LG Electronics cuts OLED TV prices amid aggressive expansion

By Song Su-hyun

Published : March 6, 2019 - 16:08

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During a launching ceremony Wednesday, LG Electronics announced price cuts for its flagship organic light-emitting diode TV lineup and vowed to boost annual sales of OLED models, which are up against liquid-crystal display TVs.

Including the LG OLED TV AI ThinQ, the company unveiled nine OLED TV models featuring the second generation of deep-learning processor Alpha 9, which will be released in the market this week. The Alpha 9 Gen 2 processor in LG’s W, E and C series of OLED TVs elevates picture and sound quality with deep learning technology and access to an extensive database of visual information.

LG is offering price cuts of up to 30 percent for the nine OLED models compared to last year’s lineup.

Kwon Bong-seok, president of the home entertainment business at LG, speak during a ceremony to launch LG Electronics’ 2019 TV lineup in Seoul on Wednesday. (Yonhap)

The largest 77-inch OLED models will be launched with price tags of between 12 million won ($10,630) and 18 million won, while 65-inch models will be priced between 5.2 million and 8.9 million won. Prices of some 55-inch OLED TVs start at 2.7 million won.

Expecting demand for OLED TVs to be 3.6 million units this year, LG has expanded the proportion of OLED models to 20 percent of its high-end TV portfolio. OLED TV demand is forecast to grow to 7 million units by 2020 and 10 million units by 2012, according to the company.

“We are introducing the best-ever OLED TV lineup,” said Kwon Bong-seok, president of the home entertainment business at LG. “The OLED technology will differentiate (itself) from common LCD TVs, strengthening our leadership in the premium TV market.”

To further increase the dominance of OLED TVs, LG said it will roll out the 8K OLED TV and rollable OLED TV, which had stunned the market at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, starting in the second half of this year.

There have been rumors that the rollable model could be priced around 40 million won, but Kwon dismissed the claim, saying, “We are still in talks to decide a reasonable price with distributors.”

Along with the OLED models, LG is introducing 10 models categorized as the Super Ultra High Definition TV range.

Featuring the company’s proprietary NanoCell technology, the advanced LCD TV lineup will offer upgraded picture and sound quality automatically adjusted by the second-generation Alpha 9 chip.

The LCD models are also hitting the market with price cuts of as much as 20 percent.

All new LG TVs for 2019 will support Apple AirPlay 2 and Apple HomeKit for easy streaming of video and audio content and connectivity to Apple’s smart home products.

Existing LG TV owners will receive a firmware update that includes Amazon Alexa, in addition to the current Google Assistant.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)

LG Electronics cuts OLED TV prices amid aggressive expansion

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