LG Display is expected to finance a portion of its investment in OLED (organic light-emitting diodes), which it plans to expand over the next three years. It is expected to use funds received from Apple and Google, which have been closely related to LG Display for the time being, as investment funds.

LG Display stated in its conference call for the second quarter of its business results on July 26, "It is important to secure financial resources as the investment announced this time is large. It is a basic principle to invest in the resources generated from sales. It is very important that some of them plan to raise funds through borrowing. In the meantime, we have been discussing strategic alliances with customers to minimize risk for P (plastic) OLED investment. It is important for us to continue the partnership as well as expand the financial resources and eliminate uncertainty.”

Earlier, LG Display revealed that it will invest about KRW 10 trillion per month in 6th generation small and medium-size POLED facilities, with monthly output of 30,000 units in Paju P10, 15,000 units per month in Gumi E5 and Paju E6 facilities.

The external borrowing revealed by LG Display will be funded by Apple and Google as the amount of investment is substantial this time. In the display industry, LG Display expects to invest in facilities by receiving advance payments of KRW 3 trillion and KRW 1 trillion from Google and Apple respectively. As a result, LG Display will be able to reduce its investment burden, and customers will be able to secure stable OLED panels.

LG Display is planning to supply OLED for iPhone 8 from E6, which will be launched in 1H12, and OLED supply of iPhone 9 is also strong. Apple, which is pursuing a multi-vendor strategy, is expected to participate in this investment as it is strategically determined that it will be able to supply OLED steadily as a supplier of LG Display as well as Samsung Display.

Google, which is launching in the second half of this year, is said to have proposed an advance payment to install the OLED panel of LG Display in `Pixel 2 XL`.

Meanwhile, LG Display expects demand for OLED TVs to grow from 2.5mn units in 2018 to 6mn units in 2020, and large OLED sales will more than double. Besides, OLED sales account for 10% of total sales, but by 2020, it will increase to 40%.

An LG Display official, in response to the question whether 10.5G OLED investment is considering mass production of LCDs, said, "We have been suffering from four to five years of raising the technology of 8.5G OLEDs. It is not the purpose of expanding the mass production of LCDs and is a leading investment in the technical verification stage for the success of ultra-large OLEDs. However, if there is some market demand, it may be used temporarily for LCD production."

By Park Seul Gee seul@


[ copyright ⓒ The Digitaltimes ]