Two Korean panel giants to spend $17 bn for next-gen display market

Samsung Display"s 8K QLED TV and LG Display"s 65 inch curved OLED. [Photo provided by each company]

To ensure panel leadership versus Chinese ascension, South Korea’s Samsung Display and LG Display will spend a combined 20 trillion won ($17 billion) to accelerate migration to OLED and more high-end displays.

The two Korean display giants have or review such new capex plans to be implemented from the second half of this year, according to industry sources on Sunday. Both have already spent 50 trillion won since 2010 to make headway in the OLED market.

Samsung Display recently announced a 13.1 trillion won investment plan over the next five years to produce Quantum Dot (QD) displays by upgrading its existing L8 display line in Asan, Chungnam Province. The company will spend 10 trillion won in building the line and 3.1 trillion won for research and development. Samsung Display may respond to tougher industry competition with an additional massive investment in the future in the large-sized display market. Samsung Display could be able to build a 11-Gen or 12-Gen production line instead of its planned 8.5-Gen line to get larger and more panels concurrently, given Chinese rivals are dominating the market of large-sized LCD panels from 10.5-Gen lines, according to Kim Dong-won, KB Securities’ research center executive.

Meanwhile, LG Display earlier decided to inject an additional 3 trillion won into its P10 line under construction in Paju to further increase its market share in OLED business. In 2015, the company announced a 4.64 trillion won project for P10 to produce 30,000 10.5-Gen substrates a month. The additional investment will increase its monthly capacity to 45,000 substrates.

LG Display has also long reviewed a plan to convert its P7 and P8 lines for LCD into ones for large-sized OLED panels. The line conversion will require additional investments worth billions of dollars. LG Display wants to increase its presence in the market of small and medium-sized OLED panels for which it will spend more to ramp up production at its E5 and E6 lines.

Samsung Display has spent about 27 trillion won since 2011 to produce OLED panels from its A2 and A3 lines in Asan. LG Display is estimated to have spent 30 trillion won in total for OLED production.

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