‘Drastic’ adjustments have been made to LG Display’s OLED TV plans for this year, according to Korea’s ET News. Slow sales (LG Has OLED TV Inventory Concerns) and low yield have apparently led to a lowering of production.
‘Multiple industry officials’ said that OLED TV panel production has been cut to below 500,000, down from almost 750,000 at the start of the year.
Another LG source told ET News that production yield of 1920 x 1080 OLED panels is now “as high as that of LCD panel[s]”, but that LGD is moving away from this area to focus on UltraHD units. However, “it is troubling how UHD OLED yields fall short of our expectations”.
If LGD can achieve an UltraHD OLED panel yield rate of 70% – 80% this year, the company will increase investment and almost double its output for 2016, said the source.
Analyst Comment
At the SID Display Week last year, we heard from staff at LG Display that the much shorter non-display time (at the end of each line and frame) of UltraHD is a real problem for OLEDs, as some external compensation is necessary to fix performance issues and there is much less time for this when you go from FullHD to UltraHD.
In its earnings call, LG Display said that the main reason that volume will be less than the 750,000 number is that while last year it shipped only 55″ OLEDs, this year it is also shipping 65″ and 77″ sets and for this reason the number of units has reduced, although the overall sq m capacity is constant. In the call, the firm said that the target remains 600,000 panels.
Interestingly, the company said that its monitor panel business is now around 70% IPS-based, although notebooks are just 30% IPS. (BR)
