LG Display announced Tuesday a new investment of 7.8 trillion won ($6.9 billion) for organic light-emitting diode panels, pinning its hopes on the emerging OLED market and hoping to become the second OLED display supplier for Apple’s iPhones.
The investment plan, which was decided at its board meeting, includes 5 trillion won for small plastic OLED and 2.8 trillion won for large OLED out of the total 7.8 trillion won.
“We made the meaningful decision in the TV and plastic OLED with the confidence that OLED panels are the future (of the display industry). This investment will give LG Display a new opportunity to leap forward,” said LG Display Chief Executive Han Sang-beom.
The 5 trillion won will be used for LG Display’s P10 plant in Paju, which the firm broke ground in November 2015. Around 1.8 trillion won has already been spent on the plant.
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LG Display's plant in Paju (LG Display) |
LG originally planned to focus on large OLED panels for televisions at the P10 plant, but recently changed its focus to small OLED panels, as the flexible smartphone market is taking off.
This year, Apple decided to shift from LCD to OLED for its upcoming iPhone series, picking Samsung Display as its sole supplier. Other Chinese tech giants, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo are also following suit by adopting OLED panels for their new phones.
With its increased production capability of OLED for smartphones, LG is hoping to become the second OLED display supplier for Apple’s iPhones.
The display maker is capable of producing 60 million units of OLED panels for 5.5-inch smartphones by 2018, and through the new investment it can produce 120 million units by 2019.
According to industry sources, Apple and Google are reportedly to invest around 3 trillion won and 1 trillion won each in LG Display for developing some of its key OLED facilities, including evaporation equipment. LG Display said nothing had been confirmed about the investment made by global clients yet.
On the same day, the company also announced its quarterly earnings. Operating profit climbed sharply to 804.2 billion won in the April-June period from an operating income of 44.3 billion won in the same period a year earlier. Sales advanced 13 percent to reach 6.6 trillion won over the cited period. Net profit came to 736.6 billion won in the April-June period, compared with a net loss of 83.9 billion won posted a year earlier.
Shares of LG Display closed at 32,800 won Tuesday, down 1.35 percent from the previous session. The earnings results were announced after the market closed.
By Shin Ji-hye (
shinjh@heraldcorp.com)
