China’s Desperate Efforts
A Chinese company posted an OLED engineer job offer via a South Korean headhunter on Dec. 5. It is assumed that the company is BOE, which rose to the top of the global LCD market by beating Samsung Display and LG Display.
At present, Chinese companies are growing very fast in the global display industry. In the large-screen LCD market, companies such as BOE and CSOT are successfully competing with extremely low prices thanks to subsidies from the Chinese government and both Samsung Display and LG Display are drastically reducing their production volumes.
The subsidies are no longer available in the LCD market and the Chinese government is redirecting the money to the OLED sector. Under the circumstances, Chinese display manufacturers are entering the sector more aggressively than before and they are achieving some results when it comes to OLED panels for use in high-end smartphones. For instance, BOE is already supplying OLED panels to the Chinese smartphone manufacturers including Huawei and its client base is about to include Samsung Electronics and Apple.
In the OLED TV panel market, China’s current track record is zero. At present, LG Display is the only manufacturer in the industry. However, Chinese companies are about to enter the market. CSOT, the second-largest display manufacturer in China, is planning to set up 8.5-generation OLED panel production lines in Guangzhou next year to start mass production in early 2022. In addition, it acquired 11 percent of Japanese company JOLED for 227 billion won in June this year.