Abdul Basit
The overheating problem of LG’s OLED TVs, once claimed limited to South Korea, reached China and Europe.
LG said it has launched the repair programme as the company detected some of the components had shown a performance drop, which could cause increases in current and potentially lead to overheating.
Recently the South Korean TV manufacturer announced that the company will offer a free repair programme to fix the power board components of 9,434 OLED TVs sold in China between 2016 and 2019.
Earlier in July, LG announced that it would offer free repairs for about 60,000 OLED TVs sold in Korea between 2016 and 2019 to replace the power board components.
LG may have to expand its repair programmes in other countries, especially in Europe following the recall announcements in China and Korea. Europe is LG’s one of the important markets for high-priced OLED TVs.
The European Commission, which represents the interests of the EU, announced recently that LG’s OLED TVs may have potential health and safety defects.
“During the operation, it is possible that the TV overheats which might cause certain damages to the power board or back cover preventing the normal operation of the TV. Potential burn/scald of finger in case of unintentional contact with the hot surface of TV back cover; Potential smoke inhalation from defected TV,” the European Commission wrote on its website.
At European Commission’s website, the investigation also notes state that the affected TVs were distributed in France, Greece, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Latvia.
TV makers were expected to be hit hard as the global economy faces a deep recession due to the coronavirus pandemic. But it is a fact that more people are staying at home longer than before because of the rising trends of ‘work from home’ and virtual education. That’s the reason TV makers are expecting rising demand for TVs, specially high-priced ones.
Earlier this year, TV manufacturers lost their chances to boost TV sales after mega sporting events such as the Tokyo Summer Olympics and the European Championship 2020 were postponed until next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they expect that the sales of their premium TVs will rise in the second half of 2020.
According to the latest data by research firm Omdia, the sales volume of OLED TVs in the second quarter of this year was bigger than expected thanks to increased sales of large televisions.
Omdia’s recent data showed OLED TVs reached 568,300 sales in the global market, around 5 per cent more than the research firm’s estimated figure of 543,000. The research company also raised its estimation of OLED TV sales in the second half of this year. In June, Omdia forecasted around 714,000 and 1.16 million OLED TVs will be sold in the third and fourth quarters, respectively, but it recalculated its estimation ― 904,000 in the third quarter and 1.2 million in the fourth quarter.
