What They Say
LG Display held its quarterly briefing for analysts and, as usual, there was some useful information. Highlights for us were:
- IT panels represented 45% of revenue, while TV was 32%, down 6%. Mobile and others were 23%
- Area panel prices are expected to grow despite expected drops in LCD because of growth in mobile panels
- Large OLED demand was up by 90% YoY. Guangzhou is up by 30K substrates and will become profitable this year.
- Overall 8m large OLEDs for TV will be sold this year, with 10m next year
- Some large OLEDs will be sold to firms outside ‘traditional’ TV brands next year
- Overall OLED was loss making last year, but overall is now profitable.
- Flexible (POLED) OLEDs are still losing money but will become profitable in 2022. One fab (not stated if Paju or Kumi) is already profitable
- CapEx will grow next year because of investment in small/medium RGB OLED.
- G8 LCD capacity is down 25% from the end of 2018 partly because of a switch to more IT and away from TV
- The firm expects IT LCDs to see pricing coming under pressure in Q1 next year, followed by notebooks in Q2
What We Think
The main really new point is the idea that there might be sales of large OLEDs to a non-traditional TV brand. It’s hard to think who would want to get into the business, but maybe Sky/Comcast which recently launched SmartTVs? (BR)
