What Display Daily thinks: We could say that worrying about not having enough investment and experience in Alt Reality display technology is nothing to fret about unless you’re really worried about the general sense that your next gen display strategies are not good enough.
There are two or three things that should be happening, won’t happen, and there may be nothing anyone can do about it. The first is that display fabs should be integrated into a general foundry model with all of Samsung’s other fabs. Strategically, TSMC could be a future, way future, competitor to Samsung Display, in theory at least. If you really want to be next gen then leverage all that you have, and Samsung has plenty.
Secondly, LG and Samsung are just two sides of the same coin. They might do better to figure out an armistice that includes carving up the display business into two halves of the same whole, reducing waste and focusing each company on where it truly has big leads in tech. There’s a heck of lot of wasted energy in hitting each other as you try and hug each other through the pain. How else do you explain the symbiosis on WOLED panels between the two conglomerates. There is a quasi carving up of territories in place, but it could be much more efficient.
Thirdly, Samsung is too big to fail, and so is every part of the business. The Elec report suggest a new organization role which is a bit like when governments form steering committees. I bet you can feel your brain atrophy as I say that. The truth of the matter is that while this looks like the usual conglomerate problem best handled by reorganization, reporting structures, and resource management, it is more of an existential crisis. The leapfrogging of OLED over LCD as a strategy to manage the display business has played out over a number of years as it takes many years to tool up and refine processes.
The reality is that once you do all the hard work of positioning yourself that slowly, everyone else is learning what works and what doesn’t, your supply chain and partners are gearing up to make you the lead customer for others, and it’s not that much of a leap to see that your first mover advantage is a house built on sand because consumers don’t reward that first mover advantage by locking into your products.
The under utilization of capacity in he industry is probably going to continue as the norm. I don’t buy into the AI PC hype, and I don’t buy into the Olympics, or some such thing, creating more market pull. I definitely do not buy into the Vision Pro and Samsung MX.
Right now, the only first mover advantage here is whoever can deliver the most-good-enough displays for the most-price-conscious value. Isn’t that the whole point of replacing LCD tech?
Samsung’s Divisional Misalignment Irks The Elec
The Elec has a stern little big of finger wagging about Samsung’s strategic decisions by griping about some specifics on the lack of coordination on display technologies. The piece lays out the following considerations:
- Technology Choice: Samsung MX Business has chosen to use Sony’s OLED on silicon (OLEDoS) technology for its XR devices instead of the technology developed by its own affiliate, Samsung Display. The decision highlights a lack of collaboration and coordination among Samsung’s different business units. This is seen as a missed opportunity for synergy and efficient resource use within Samsung.
- New Organizational Role: There’s a noted need for a new position within Samsung to oversee and coordinate technology development across its various electronics divisions (like Samsung MX, Samsung DS, Samsung Display, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics) to better manage and exploit the interdependencies of their respective technologies.
- Opportunities and Challenges: Proper integration and collaboration among Samsung’s units could leverage the company’s broad capabilities in semiconductor, display, and glass processing technologies. However, current internal divisions and lack of clear roles are hindering this potential.
- Loss of Production Experience: By opting for Sony’s OLEDoS technology instead of developing its own, Samsung Display loses the opportunity to gain valuable production experience, which could affect its competitive edge. This scenario mirrors Samsung Display’s success in OLED panels for iPhones, where early production experience provided a significant competitive advantage.
- Development in Related Technologies: The piece also touches on developments in glass core substrate technology by Samsung Electro-Mechanics, which involves changing the core material of chip boards from resin to glass, offering benefits like superior chemical resistance.
