LG Electronics launched its 2026 OLED TV lineup in South Korea on Thursday, cutting domestic prices on several models from a year earlier as it works to narrow the price gap between OLED and the cheaper mini-LED sets sold by Chinese competitors.

The entry-level 65-inch OLED (B6) starts at 3.29 million won ($2,193), while the top-tier 83-inch G6 reaches 13 million won. LG confirmed that its wireless wallpaper TV, the W6, and a new Micro RGB LCD line would follow in the first half of this year.

The W6, a 9-millimeter-thick wireless set that won multiple awards at CES 2026, will be priced only modestly above the existing G-series flagship rather than at a steep premium, according to LG.

The top-end models are up to 3.9 times brighter than the entry-level B6, which LG says makes them the brightest in its OLED history. The displays also carry a new anti-reflection coating that eliminates incoming light rather than scattering it, an approach LG says cuts reflections by half compared with previous panels. On the software side, Google's Gemini has been added alongside Microsoft's Copilot on LG's webOS platform, giving users a choice of AI search engines.

The decision to lower prices is notable given that LG's TV division posted an operating loss last year amid rising component costs. Yet the company appears to be prioritizing market access over near-term margin recovery, a choice driven by competitive reality. Chinese rivals TCL and Hisense have overtaken LG in total global TV shipments in recent years through aggressively priced mini-LED sets.

At the launch event in Seoul on Wednesday, Baek Sun-pil, head of LG's display customer experience division, was frank about OLED's structural limits as a mass-market product. Only two companies, LG Display and Samsung Display, produce TV-grade OLED panels, and their combined annual capacity sits around 10 million units against a global TV market of 200 million.

"OLED, in automotive terms, sits in the Lexus tier rather than the Camry tier," Baek said. "We are working to make it reachable with a reasonable budget, but it is not going to suddenly drop to an entry-level price point."

LG also introduced the Micro RGB evo, which applies its OLED light-control algorithms to an LCD TV using miniaturized RGB LED backlights. Baek acknowledged that LG uses the same panels available to competitors on the LCD side, arguing the differentiation lies in processing.

"Our image quality algorithms and system-on-chip are where we have a clear edge," he said, adding that this year's financial results should be "much better than last year."

By Moon Joon-hyun (mjh@heraldcorp.com)