- OLED panel costs have dropped by almost half in five years
- Prices are expected to drop further in 2026
- Savings are likely to be fairly modest
Whether it’s LCD, OLED or RGB-LED, every new kind of TV tech begins its life with absolutely eye-watering prices. The good news is that those prices do come down over time, and for OLED TVs they’ve been dropping quite considerably over the last five years – and they’re going to continue to drop over the coming year.
According to industry sources reported by FlatpanelsHD, the cost of a 65-inch OLED panel from LG Display was $1,000 in 2020. That fell to $600 in 2024, and is expected to drop below $500 before the end of 2025. Further reductions are expected in 2026.
And of course it’s not just 65-inch OLED panels; it’s panels of all sizes, including larger ones, with the cost of 77-inch and 83-inch panels noticeably dropping in the last year or so.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the really big savings probably won’t be passed on to us. Or at least, not all of them will because display firms need to recoup their initial and ongoing investments in people, production lines and premises.
Why OLED TVs are getting cheaper to manufacture
Moving to a new kind of TV panel isn’t cheap. Manufacturers have to invest in new machinery, and often in entire new factories to put that machinery into. They need to train their people, and they need to improve production efficiency to deliver higher yields and lower wastage. In short, they need to spend a ton of money up front.
Over time, that money starts to get repaid. As Korean newspaper Biz Chosun explains, for LG Display, line expansions and improving yields are an effort “which began paying off last year”, achieving a 30% reduction in production costs. “Next year, the company aims for additional cost cuts through a design innovation that changes the display driver structure,” the report says.
Biz Chosun also says that the falling production costs could head off the existential threat of RGB LED, the so-called OLED killer, at the pass. “The cost of the LED chips that make up the RGB LED backlight accounts for most of the panel unit price,” its industry source explained. “When you include the backlight and driver costs, it is effectively estimated at the $400–$600 level, similar to OLED panel production costs, and it could even be more expensive.”
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