Move Aims to Solidify Lead over Competitors

LG Display’s 65-inch Rollable OLED TV panel

LG Display Co. is making an additional 3 trillion won (US$2.54 billion) investment in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV panels. The move is part of the company’s aggressive strategy to make the OLED display the mainstream technology of the global display industry. The company’s investment in OLED panels since 2015 adds up to 7.64 trillion won (US$6.48 billion).

LG Display announced on July 23 that it has decided to invest an additional 3 trillion won (US$2.54 billion) in the 10.5th generation OLED production lines at its P10 plant in Paju. The company injected 1.84 trillion won (US$1.56 billion) into construction of the P10 plant in November 2015 and announced an additional 2.80 trillion won (US$2.37 billion) investment in July 2017.

Accordingly, LG Display’s investment in the P10 plant adds up to 7.64 trillion won (US$6.48 billion). Based on the investments, the firm is planning to start volume production of 30,000 65-inch or larger OLED panels per month in 2022. The latest investment is intended to additionally produce 15,000 OLED panels per month in the first half of 2023. The plant’s capacity will increase to 900,000 55-inch OLED panels per month. On an yearly basis, the company can produce 10.80 million 55-inch OLED TV panels.
 

A company official said, “The P10 plant is the world’s largest single panel factory which is 108 meters in height alone. It used 220,000 tons of steel frames, an amount enough to make 30 Eiffel Towers.”

With such a large investment and its world-class factory operation know-how, LG Display is planning to maximize effectiveness and market responsiveness. The company also stressed that it would strengthen profitability at its existing 8.5th generation production lines by reducing production costs through the multi model glass (MMG) system, which allows the company to manufacture various sizes of panels in one plate at the same time, minimizing losses.

With the latest investment, LG Display expects to accelerate the era of popularization of OLED televisions further. Sales of large OLED panels are forecast to grow from 2.90 million units in 2018 to 3.80 million units in 2019 and 7.70 million in 2021 and 10 million in 2022, according to market research firm IHS. The share of the OLED TV market is also expected to rise from 5.7 percent in 2018 to 10.4 percent in 2023. Currently, LG Display has nearly dominated the OLED TV panel market.

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