All of Corning’s tanks at its Gen 10.5 display-glass plant in Hefei, China, “are in normal operating condition,” emailed spokesperson Gabrielle Bailey, responding to a Display Supply Chain Consultants report warning that a Hefei “tank failure,” combined with an unrelated Nippon Electric Glass mishap, could “exacerbate an already tight glass supply situation” (see 2012210039). “The pandemic impacted the global economy in 2020, and the display industry was no exception,” said Bailey. COVID-19-driven restrictions on Corning’s “travel and transport” delayed “ramp schedules” at its Gen 10.5 plants in China, she said. “These restrictions also obliged us to extend the timing for required maintenance activities at our Hefei plant to support our customers by maximizing output volume.” Corning in Q3 “successfully started up” its Gen 10.5 glass-melting operations in Wuhan and Guangzhou, China, said Bailey. The pandemic-related logistical challenges midyear were “short-term in nature,” she said. Corning often boasts it's committed to fully deploying three of the new Gen 10.5 glass plants in China. Asahi Glass owns the fourth.

The average U.S. TV was 4.9 years old in 2020, 9% younger than in 2019, while screen sizes are growing at a 2-inch yearly clip, reported NPD Tuesday. The average size of a replacement TV rose to 51 inches from 49 inches in November 2019 and 47 inches in November 2018. Some 15% of installed TVs are 60 inches or larger, up from 11% a year ago. While screen size is a key motivator, features like HDR and streaming apps are continuing to carry weight as consumers consider replacement purchases, said the research firm. HDR now factors into 13% of replacement TV sales and apps, 31%, said a consumer survey of 5,000 U.S. adults Oct. 20-Nov. 12. Year to date, TV sales are up 19% over 2019, spurred by stay-at-home trends during the pandemic. Larger screen sizes are having the most growth. Through Cyber Monday week, 65-inch TV sales rose 27% year on year; 70-inch and above jumped 82%. In total, 65-inch and larger TVs made up 21% of sales, up from 18% in 2019 and 13% in 2018. NPD predicts the segment will be 27% of sales by 2022.

A recent power outage at a major production site in Takatsuki, Japan, run by Nippon Electric Glass “may exacerbate an already tight glass supply situation and lead to a full-blown glass shortage,” Display Supply Chain Consultants warned Monday. An unrelated “tank failure” at Corning’s Gen 10.5 glass plant in Hefei, China, “adds to the supply woes,” it said. “A constraint on glass supply may lead to a corresponding constraint on LCD panel supply which may lead to even greater price increases for LCD panels.” DSCC estimates capacity at Takatsuki in Q4 was "almost 20% of NEG’s worldwide capacity and nearly 4% of total industry capacity for display glass,” it said. Corning’s glass production at Hefei supports BOE Technology’s Gen 10.5 panel production at the same site. Gen 10.5 glass and panel production is optimized for 65- and 75-inch large-screen premium TVs. Corning’s mishap “by itself would not create any meaningful disruption” but may prevent BOE “from accelerating production there to take advantage of supply constraints elsewhere,” said DSCC. Neither Corning nor NEG commented.

LG Electronics is adding support for the Facebook Watch TV app on its webOS smart TVs dating to 2014, LG said Friday. Available for download at the LG Content Store, it lets users view Facebook videos tailored to their interests. Facebook Watch attracts more than 1.25 billion global viewers monthly, said LG.

Retail TV sell-through in the “32-inch size class” of sets was up 20% through the first nine months of 2020 “after being flat in 2019 vs 2018,” emailed NPD Vice-President-Industry Analysis Stephen Baker Wednesday. “The top 5 brands (in alphabetical order) are Hisense, Philips, Samsung, TCL and Vizio.” They collectively had only 58% of unit volume through the first three quarters because “this category has a very high percentage of factory brands and private label products,” said Baker. October TV imports with 30- to 35-inch screens had the highest growth among the smaller-screen categories, rising 106.7% from a year earlier to 1.05 million units (see 2012130001), 26.6% of them from Vietnam. Many in the CTA rank and file fear President Donald Trump may try rushing through tariffs on Vietnamese goods before Jan. 20 as a Trade Act Section 301 remedy for the Vietnam government’s alleged currency manipulation (see 2012160022).

Samsung Electronics of South Korea applied Dec. 11 to trademark in the U.S. a stylized logo with the messaging “OLED Provided By Samsung” for a wide diversity of possible flat-panel display applications, including for TVs, monitors and smartphones, Patent and Trademark Office records show. The application errantly says the logo’s messaging is for “OLED Powered By Samsung.” Display Supply Chain Consultants CEO Ross Young speculates the logo is for hybrid quantum dot-OLED TV panels that panel maker Samsung Display plans to commercialize in 2021 for sale to global TV brands, including Samsung Electronics, he emailed Wednesday. QD-OLED is expected to have some of the same advantages as LG Display’s white OLED technology, plus increased brightness and wide color gamut, said DSCC last month (see 2011110002). Samsung didn’t respond to questions Thursday.

ViewSonic, targeting hybrid learning environments, launched a pen display and notepad designed as supplementary devices for classroom or distance learning, it said Wednesday. The 13-inch ViewBoard (available now, $349), bundled with an electromagnetic pen, can be paired with a computer as a secondary touch device to share content, it said. The 7.5-inch ViewBoard Notepad ($69, due this month) allows users to take digitalized notes in real time. The Notepad's pen uses ink, allowing users to write or draw on paper; pen strokes are digitized in real time, it said. Both devices work with the company's myViewBoard software.

Q4 industry OLED panel revenue will increase 49% sequentially, reaching an all-time high of nearly $12 billion, projected Display Supply Chain Consultants Monday. The iPhone 12's later-than-expected release dates “depressed OLED panel shipment sales in Q3 and accelerated sales in Q4,” said DSCC. Q3 OLED panel revenue totaled $8 billion, down 3.3% from the 2019 quarter, but DSCC’s Q4 OLED revenue forecast of $11.9 billion would be up 46% from Q4 2019. The “pattern” of OLED panel revenue is “heavily weighted by smartphones, by far the largest application” for OLED technology in monetary terms, it said. Q3 OLED smartphone revenue was down 9% from a year earlier with the iPhone launch delay, but a 51% Q4 revenue increase to $9.8 billion is expected.

Though microdisplay supplier Kopin landed its first microLED patents in the 1990s, it didn’t consider commercializing the technology until recently, founder-CEO John Fan told Insight Media President Chris Chinnock in a published Q&A Monday. “As laser printers became better and cheaper,” the LED printers of the 1990s “became obsolete,” said Fan. In the time when the first patents were granted, the technology for thin-film LEDs and bonding to silicon “was immature and possible applications for LED microdisplays were not clear,” he said. Kopin is investigating how microLED can “complement our display portfolio,” said Fan. “This would be a logical progression.” MicroLED’s biggest advantage is its potential for very high brightness, which would be “useful” for augmented-reality applications, but using the technology in microdisplays is “still in an early stage of development,” he said. Done successfully, it “could be the ultimate display,” he said.

Samsung began preorders in Korea Wednesday for its 110-inch 4K MicroLED display, which will be available for the first time in traditional TV form globally in Q1. The self-emissive display expresses 100% of the DCI and Adobe RGB color gamut and accurately delivers wide color gamut images taken with high-end digital single-lens reflex cameras, said the company. The multi-view feature offers up to four content sources simultaneously on up to 55-inch split screens, connecting multiple external sources for viewing on one display. An embedded sound system delivers 5.1-channel sound with no external speaker. Its object-tracking feature identifies moving objects on screen, projecting the sound to follow the action, the company said. Samsung's first MicroLED display was introduced at CES 2018 (see 1801080066) in the form of The Wall, configurable modules requiring professional installation. The life span of MicroLEDs, made of long-lasting inorganic materials, is up to 100,000 hours, or over a decade, Samsung said. The price wasn't given.