Change of Focus
LG Display is accelerating its business restructuring from displays for TVs and monitors to those for smartphones and vehicles.
LG Display’s sales of displays for mobile devices, including smartphones and vehicles, are expected to cross 40 percent for the first time this year in April according to sources in the display industry. Sales of displays for mobile devices are also expected to soar and reach 10 trillion won (US$7.6 billion) this year. They showed sharp growth in the last two years from the 26 percent range in 2021.
So far, sales of mid-sized displays for information technology (IT) products (monitors, laptop computers and tablets) have accounted for the lion’s share at around 40 percent at LG Display.
First of all, the Korean display giant is enjoying a rise in the supply of organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels for the iPhone. According to DSCC, a market researcher, the proportion of LG Display’s OLED panels among total iPhone 14 OLED panels has been growing for 7 months in a row. This is because LG Display has supplied a large amount of high-end low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) OLED panels for the premium lineup iPhone 14 Pro Max to Apple since October last year.
DSCC analyzed that LG Display’s share will further inflate in the iPhone 15 series scheduled to come out in the second half of this year. In the previous iPhone series, LG Display’s cumulative share is estimated at 18 percent but it is expected to rise to 28 percent in the iPhone 15.
The growth of vehicle displays, another axis of LG Display’s order-based business, is also on a sharp rise. Industry experts predict that LG Display’s vehicle display sales will more than double from 1.6 trillion won (US$1.2 billion) in 2022 to 3.5 trillion won (US$2.7 billion) in 2025. In 2022, LG Display’s annual vehicle display order intake stood at 4 to 5 trillion won, up about 40 percent from the previous year.