China closes in fast on displays — but Korea still leads the way

"Whenever a Korean display company unveils a new product at an overseas exhibition, a Chinese company shows up at the very next show with the exact same thing."

The remark came from a display industry insider interviewed recently, and it carried a deep sense of alarm. The assumption that Korea leads the world in OLED had long felt like a given — but the pace of China's advance, as those on the ground describe it, is far faster than most people realize.

The numbers make the threat plain. Last year, Korean companies held a 69 percent share of the global OLED market, with Chinese firms accounting for the remaining 31 percent. Korea pioneered OLED mass production in 2007 and long dominated the market, but China's entry in 2015 put it on the defensive. Backed by massive investment and aggressive pricing, Chinese rivals have steadily eaten into Korea's lead. A market share that exceeded 90 percent through the late 2010s fell below the 70 percent threshold in 2024.

Against that backdrop, the K-Display 2026 exhibition held recently at COEX in Seoul offered a timely reminder of what Korean companies still bring to the table, as the country's leading display manufacturers put their visions of future technology on display.

Samsung Display showcased its RGB OLEDoS-based smart glasses — a device even the president has tried on — drawing a steady stream of visitors eager to experience the augmented-reality headset firsthand. Putting them on, navigation information appeared directly in the field of view.

LG Display signaled its strategy for the physical AI era from the moment visitors stepped through the exhibition entrance. A humanoid robot panel built with P-OLED (plastic OLED) greeted attendees with the message "HELLO," illustrating how displays are expanding well beyond picture-quality competition into new frontiers such as wearables and robotics.

Remarks from the two companies' technology chiefs also stood out. Both said low power consumption combined with high performance is the defining requirement for AI displays.

Choi Young-seok, LG Display's chief technology officer and executive vice president, outlined plans to expand the lineup of low-power Tandem OLED products. No Cheol-rae, executive vice president and head of Samsung Display's production technology research institute, highlighted RGB OLEDoS and stretchable OLED as next-generation technologies applicable across a wide range of AI devices. The takeaway was clear: Korean companies remain the ones setting the direction for future display technology.

Optimism, however, has its limits. China's pursuit — fueled by large-scale investment, a deep talent pool and government support — is only going to intensify. BOE has built an 8.6th-generation production line for IT-use OLED, and TCL CSOT and Visionox are also pressing ahead with major investment programs. Price competition is likely to grow fiercer still.

The answer, ultimately, lies in the one-step-ahead technological edge that Korean companies have consistently demonstrated. What sets them apart is not merely a gap in market share but the leadership to define where the market goes next. AI represents a new opportunity: no matter how sophisticated AI reasoning becomes, it is useless without a means of interacting with people — and that is precisely why displays, as the window through which information is received, are growing in importance. The hope is that K-Display will become the force that charts the course across mobility, robotics, extended reality and beyond.