Lasers & Sources

Philips divests OLED IP and production to OLEDWorks

May 1, 2015

OLEDWorks reached an agreement with Royal Philips to buy selected parts of its OLED light source components business.

Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) light engine and panel manufacturer OLEDWorks (Rochester, NY) reached an agreement with lighting company Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG) to buy selected parts of its OLED light source components business.

Over the coming months, Philips will establish a new legal entity and transfer key parts of its OLED business, including the production facility located in Aachen, Germany, and relevant intellectual property, into it. All shares of the new entity will subsequently be sold to OLEDWorks. Once the new company has been established, OLEDWorks will be granted a license by Philips to market its OLED light source components under the Philips brand. Philips will remain a distributor of the panels through its OEM sales channels.

"The acquisition of strategic elements of Philips OLED lighting technology, manufacturing and OEM sales channels significantly broadens our mission to deliver high performance OLED light engines to a wide range of lighting applications," said David DeJoy, CEO OLEDWorks. "The team in Aachen brings OLED expertise in production of quality high brightness panels that complements the OLED heritage and manufacturing innovation of our Rochester team. With our new, expanded team, OLEDWorks will continue to introduce exciting and novel OLED lighting modules that enable, and inspire, innovative luminaire designs. Existing customers will realize continued reliability in performance, delivery and collaboration; new customers can develop differentiated final products with the same support."

"In pursuance of our strategic focus we have decided to divest our OLED components development and production to a specialized partner. This will enable us to focus our business and resources on developing innovative connected lighting systems and services for professional and consumer markets. We are very pleased that with OLEDWorks we have a strong and solid partner to take OLED lighting panel production to the next level," said Eric Rondolat, CEO Philips Lighting. "Philips sees the merit of OLED as a light source for specific applications in its systems and services portfolio and will continue to apply OLEDWorks' panels in its finished products."

Founded in 2010, OLEDWorks is the only U.S.-based OLED light engine and panel manufacturer.

SOURCE: OLEDWorks; http://oledworks.com/news/OLEDWorks%20Press%20Release%2004282015.pdf

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.