Baik Seon-pill, vice president and head of LG’s TV product planning division, speaks at a media briefing at the IFA tech show in Berlin on Sept. 2, 2023.
BERLIN, Sept. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — LG Electronics Inc.’s high-end OLED TVs have been faring well despite the overall TV market slump caused by macroeconomic woes, an LG executive has said at the IFA tech trade show in Berlin.
“Despite the war (between Russia and Ukraine) and economic difficulties in Europe, the OLED TV market grew an annual rate of 1 percent in the first half,” Baik Seon-pill, vice president and head of LG’s TV product planning division, said at a press briefing on Saturday.
“While there are still uncertainties in the second half, I think the OLED market will remain solid,” he said.
At IFA, Europe’s biggest annual tech fair, LG showcased a vast array of its premium TVs, including the 97-inch LG Signature OLED M, which was debuted at CES in January and launched in Europe, LG’s biggest OLED TV market, just last week.
IFA visitors and partners have shown high interest in the world’s first wireless OLED TV, Baik said, and major distributors have asked LG to supply the model to them.
TV manufacturers have been doubling down on their push in the more profitable high-end TV segment, where demand slowed down less markedly than in the budget category, at a time when the TV market is forecast to shrink 5.8 percent from a year ago amid lackluster consumer demand.
In the premium TV segment, in which TVs are priced at US$2,500 or more, Samsung Electronics Co. took up a 61.7 percent market share in the first half of this year, followed by LG at 18.3 percent and Sony at 15.1 percent, according to industry tracker Omdia.
LG Signature OLED M is shown in this photo provided by the company on July 13, 2023.
In the OLED TV segment, however, LG has kept its solid No. 1 spot.
In the first quarter, LG claimed approximately 60 percent of the OLED TV market by total shipments.
When it comes to 70-inch or larger OLED TVs, the company took up more than 70 percent of the market. Among the ultra-large OLED TVs, the 86-inch model showed the highest annual sales growth.
Baik said LG will work to lower the price of the 98-inch model to more affordable levels to meet the growing demand for ultra-big OLED screens.
LG’s TV business made a turnaround in the first quarter, after logging losses for the past three consecutive quarters, on improving TV demand in the European market and decreasing inventory levels and marketing costs.
(Yonhap)
