Pushed Down to 4th Place in LCD Market
LG Display's LCD market share has fallen to fourth place. The drop in its LCD market ranking reflects the shift in its focus from LCD panels to OLED (organic light emitting diode) panels in response to a price war initiated by China.
LG Display placed fourth in the LCD TV panel market in the fourth quarter of last year with a share of 14.3 percent, down by two notches from the previous quarter, market researcher IHS Markit said in a report on March 4. The Korean display giant had placed first until the first quarter of 2018, but it was pushed down to fourth place by Chinese display makers such as BOE.
By the third quarter of last year, LG Display's market share was 15.5 percent, second only to China's BOE (18.9 percent). However, in the fourth quarter, Innolux of Taiwan (16.0 percent) and CSOT of China (14.4 percent) came ahead of LG Display to take the second and third spots following BOE (17.8 percent).
Samsung Display's market share slid by more than 1 percentage point to 9.0 percent but the company retained the fifth place.
As of January 2020, LG Display ranked fourth with a 10.8 percent market share, down 6.4 percentage points from the same period of 2019. First, second and third places went to BOE (18.7 percent), CSOT (17.4 percent) and Innolux (13.9 percent).
This clearly reflects LG Display’s strategic focus on OLED panels in the large panel business. In fact, the company recently announced that OLED’s share in its TV panel sales increased from 24 percent in 2018 to 34 percent last year. Its 8.5th-generation OLED display production capacity climbed from 69,000 glass substrates to 79,000 sheets per month during the same period. When its new Guangzhou OLED line in China goes into full operation, its LCD phase-out move will become stronger.