[
THE INVESTOR] It seems unavoidable for Samsung Display, the display-making unit of
Samsung Electronics, to further beef up production of its organic light-emitting diode panels on soaring demand from China’s smartphone manufacturers.
UBI Research, a local market research firm specialized on OLED, predicted that the Chinese demand for mobile OLED could surge to some 200 million units next year.
Samsung Galaxy S7 with OLED display. Apple iPhone’s planned adoption of OLED screen possibly from next year is expected to make Chinese smartphone-makers follow suit. / Samsung Electronics
The firm urged Samsung Display, the No. 1 mobile OLED producer with almost 97 percent market share, to add more production lines at its A2 OLED plant. One solution, it said, is moving some lines for transparent OLED to other plants such as the L8 LCD plant.
“Considering soaring demand in China, Samsung Display is required to add manufacturing lines for an additional 20,000 to 30,000 panel production,” said Yi Choong-hoon, president and chief analyst at UBI.
Samsung Display plans to supply OLED display to Apple possibly from next year. With the planned adoption of the hot-selling iPhone, other smartphone-makers, especially those in China, are expected to follow suit in the coming years.
By Lee Ji-yoon (
jylee@heraldcorp.com)
