Sharp plans to start mass production of highly transparent, liquid crystal displays (LCD) that will also show color images. The struggling Osaka-based electronics company said that it plans to start testing the new LCDs with the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), and plans to sell them to businesses as early as fiscal 2017.

The new displays are using technology that can display colors without using a color filter, as conventional LCD do. Sharp did not disclose the transparency level of the new screens.

Both LG Display and Samsung Display have showcased transparent LCD and OLED screen prototypes mainly for commercial signage applications.

A latest report from Korea-based Digital Time claims that Samsung Display will mass produce mirror and transparent OLED displays at its A2 line by the end of 2015.

The Samsung OLED displays will reportedly have 75% reflectance, similar to actual mirrors, and will be used in shops to provide a digital viewing platform for consumers see themselves wearing the products they want to buy without actually wearing them.

Existing mirror LCD displays have about a 50% reflectance level. However, the Samsung Mirror Display delivers a very high 100,000:1 contrast ratio and a much faster response time at less than 1ms than LCD transparent panels (4,000:1, 8ms), as well as high reflectance levels.