OLED lighting’s short lifetime and high retail prices has been a major obstacle for the luminaires to acquire more market share, but new developments in Japan might be changing this, according to a MoneyDJ report.

Japanese manufacturer Kaneka developed an OLED panel lighting with a lifetime of 50,000 hours, about double the lifetime of existing OLED products, according to a recent Nikkei report. Kaneka manufactured an OLED lighting panel that is 8x8 cm and 1mm thick. The company’s annual OLED production capacity is about 20,000 pieces, and has plans of expanding production capacity to halve manufacturing costs. Kaneka’s 2020 revenue target is set at 50 billion Japanese Yen (US $460 million).

LG Chem also announced on Sept. 11, 2014 the development of an OLED panel with a lifetime of 40,000 hours. Moreover, Pionee and Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. established an OLED lighting sales company. The two companies started mass producing OLED panels that incorporate wet coating process for a light-emitting layer technology, which can lower OLED manufacturing costs and extend lifetime by fourfold.