Merck posts an interesting presentation detailing the company's OLED business. And it includes some interesting details. So first of all, Merck says that if OLEDs advances further, it could gain a meaningful share in the TV market. In fact, they forecast OLED panels to grab 10-15% of the total display market by 2019. By surface area, the market will grow to around 50 km2, mostly from OLED TV applications.
Merck is still focused on OLED printing technologies over evaporation technologies as the technological advantages will enable cheaper large area panels. According to this presentation, in 2010 Merck started to collaborate with Epson on printable OLEDs (which is interesting as officially they announced this alliance in October 2012). Anyway Merck says that this alliance created a "significant momentum" in OLED printing technology. as you can see from the chart below which shows Merck's OLED development advances over time:
In terms of its strategy, Merck wants to become an OLED solution provider, not just a material supplier as this will maximize the value for both Merck and its customers. So Merck will address whole devices and optimize material combination. The company currently has around 80 OLED R&D experts and around 1,400 related patents.
Source: Merck/Slideshare