Mass Production Imminent
While LG Electronics is releasing the world's first 48-inch OLED TVs in June, panels for the new TVs will be supplied from LG Display's Chinese plant. Analysts say that the company has begun to count down mass production 10 months after the Chinese plant was completed last year.
"LG Display's plant in Guangzhou, China is delivering the panels for 48-inch OLED TVs to LG Electronics," an LG Electronics official said. Although the Guangzhou plant has not started mass-production of OLED panels, production is already in progress. LG Display said it will complete a mass-production system for the Guangzhou plant within June.
The Guangzhou plant was once shut down due to a drop in production yield. The resumption of operations was delayed early 2020 due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. LG Display has finally decided to start volume production of OLED panels in the second half of this year. For this, it sent a total of 500 research workers to the plant through chartered planes on two occasions — in March and May 2020.
The global supply of large OLED panels will be greatly expanded in the second half of 2020, many industry experts forecast. If LG Display produces 60,000 panels per month (based on glass substrates) at its Guangzhou plant, its production volume will nearly double as its Paju plant in Korea produces 70,000 panels per month. This will resolve the shortages in the supply of OLED panels.
The OLED TV market is expected to grow rapidly from 2.51 million units in 2018 to 3.5 million units in 2020 and seven million units in 2022, market research firm Omdia forecast. LG Display has been the only producer of large OLED panels due to the high technological barriers. With the operation of the new plant, LG Display will be able to supply OLED TV panels stably to a total of 19 OLED TV manufacturers including LG Electronics, Sony of Japan, Xiaomi and Huawei of China. As a result, the OLED TV market is expected to grow rapidly, industry insiders say.
Companies that have been planning to release rollable TVs and small OLED TVs in 2020 will also face fewer problems in the supply of panels. As LG Display is able to produce 55-inch, 65-inch, and 77-inch OLED panels from glass substrates by utilizing multi-model glass (MMG) technology at its Guangzhou plant, there is no problem in making a wide array of products.