LG Display, OLED will continue next year

LG Display is focused on the OLED business to take the lead in current market. At the Performance Presentation for 3Q held on October 22, 2014, LGD demonstrated its confidence on the OLED as the future industry-leading business.

Don Kim, CFO of LGD said, “LG Display is developing the OLED business bearing losses for the time being as we are convinced that OLED will be the industry of the future, and anticipate profits to improve next year in terms of OLED.”

Currently LGD is forming a market by exclusively supplying panels for OLED TV. Providing panels for OLED TV to Korea and China, LGD stated that it will expand the market, for instance, securing the Japanese customers in the future.

The technology developed to countermeasure the OLED TV is the QD LCD TV. The strategy in respond to OLED is one of main issues as Chinese companies have unveiled the QD TV and Samsung is expected to release it next year. Regarding this, LGD’s executive director of strategic marketing, Youngkwon Song said that the strategies for the OLED TV will not change by reason of the release of QD TV, and LGD will continue its fundamental competitiveness of OLED which are competitive price and design differentiation attained by constant strategy of removing BLU.

For the investment plan for 4Q, it is anticipated to reduce the investment cost compared to the amount of 3.5 trillion won of last year. Don Kim, CFO said that the investment on LCD will be limited while the investment on the distinguished products like OLED will be about conversion of existing fab.

Despite LGD is taking a favorable turn with small and medium size LCD panels at present, it is expected to continue the preparation strategy through OLED. But it is analyzed that the future plan using LCD is not stable due to the rapid increase of Chinese companies’ capacities and lowering of price.

LGD’s revenues in the third quarter of 2014 is KRW 6,547 billion, increased by 10% compared to the previous quarter, and the operating profit is KRW 474 billion, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 191%. The outlook is that it is due to the increase of the shipments in time with the release of the Apple IPhone 6.

‘The shipment for the third quarter was 9,654Km² as expected and it was measured against the expected preparation for considering the tight demand-supply status’, said Don Kim, CFO of LGD. Furthermore, as per product, the sales percentage of mobile devices and tablets applying the small and medium panels were accounted for 19% and 12% respectively, a quarter-on-quarter increases of 3% for each.

reporter@olednet.co.kr