More Chinese TV-makers are jumping on the bandwagon to roll out organic light-emitting diode TVs, increasing their presence in the global OLED TV market.
Market officials said the rise of the Chinese OLED TV makers would be more of a boon than bane for LG Electronics and LG Display, which have been striving for the past couple of years to expand the market for the display.
LG Electronics’ 65-inch UHD OLED TV. LGE
The Chinese TV-makers that have thrown their hats into the ring include Skyworth, Hisense, Konka and Changhong.
They saw their share in the global OLED TV market increase from 1.3 percent last year to 11.4 percent in the first quarter this year, according to data compiled by market researcher Display Search. The market share of LG Electronics decreased from 98.7 percent to 88.6 percent during the same period.
“Since LG Display is the sole supplier of OLED panels in the global market, the growth of the OLED businesses in China will do more good than harm to LGD,” an industry official said.
The official added that the participation of more Chinese TV-makers would lead to robust growth of the world’s OLED TV market.
Han Sang-beom, chief executive of the display business of LG Group, said in March that “more Chinese and Japanese display firms will pick up the pace to develop OLED panels down the road.”
The Korean display-maker plans to increase its production of OLED panels at its production line in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, from the current 26,000 sheets per month to 34,000 sheets.
The company has recently decided to make further investments worth around 1.05 trillion won ($901 million) to build a new OLED production line in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province. Around 7,500 sheets of OLED panels per month are expected to be rolled out from the Gumi line as early as the first half of 2017.
LG Electronics’ compatriot rival Samsung Electronics has postponed the rollouts of OLED TVs, citing high production costs and low production yields for the flexible panels as the reasons for the delay.
Instead of the OLED TVs, Samsung has opted to put focus on producing liquid crystal display-based UHD TV, dubbed the SUHD TV.
By Kim Young-won (
wone0102@heraldcorp.com)
