Investment Competition
It has been found that Chinese companies are rapidly increasing their capital expenditure for OLED displays for use in smartphones, wearable devices, in-vehicle display and the like.
This year, Samsung Display is making an investment in order to produce 30,000 sixth-generation small and medium-sized OLED panels a month via its L7-1 facilities and 15,000 via its A3 facilities. LG Display is planning to increase its sixth-generation OLED panel production volume to 30,000 units a month.
Meanwhile, the monthly production volume of the Chinese manufacturers including BOE, Tianma and Visionox is scheduled to be boosted to 137,000 units a month this year, about 300% of that of last year. BOE’s B7 located in Chengdu is expected to increase its monthly production volume from 16,000 to 32,000 between last year and this year. Visionox is planning to increase its volume by 30,000. Each of China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) and Ever Display increases its volume by 15,000 this year, too.
Experts point out that competition between the two sides is likely to continue for a couple of years with undersupply predicted to continue until 2020. The South Korean and Chinese companies are planning to increase their monthly production volumes to at least 105,000 and 160,000 next year, respectively. Samsung Display’s annual production volume is estimated to reach 550,000 next year.