LG’s 55-Inch OLED TV $10,000 In Australia?


It’s been a challenging week for LG’s TV business. Good Gear Guide claims to have “sighted” advertising materials that suggest the gorgeous 55-inch EM9600 OLED TV we saw at CES will hit Australia in October for a cool $10,000 (up from $8,000 in the US). No wonder it’ll supposedly be marketed as the ‘Rolex of TVs’. Then days later, it emerged that the secret OLED tech behind both LG’s and Samsung’s next-gen TVs has allegedly been stolen and leaked to Chinese and Taiwanese competitors.

The Korean Times reports that Korean prosecutors have charged six Korean workers (detaining three) from Orbotech, an Isreali company that supplies display testing equipment. They allege the workers used USB drives shaped like credit cards to smuggle information key to LG’s White-OLED and Samsung’s AMOLED displays.

Underscoring just how important both Korean companies are to the country’s economic output: both OLED technologies are designated as ‘core industrial technology’ under law surrounding such leaks. Each company has invested a billion dollars in OLED R&D. The impact could be huge.

Closer to home, Good Gear Guide says the docs it saw clearly indicate that LG Australia is aware the EM9600 will be three times more expensive than other TVs. Citing brands like Ferrari and Armani as inspiration, the company will look to celebrities and “aspirational buyers” to drive demand.

Samsung’s ES9500 OLED TV is expected to come in at around US$9,000, but it remains to be seen if we’ll see it arrive in Australia this side of Christmas. As for Sony and Pansonic? This week they formed a partnership which will see the two Japanese giants jointly developing large, low-cost, high-resolution OLED panels of their own. [The Korean Times and Good Gear Guide]
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Want to know more about OLED, 4k, Crystal Display, 8k TV technology?
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For something more affordable:
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