We are working to turn a profit for the full year. The magnitude of improvement in second-half results will expand further compared with the first half.
Jeong Cheol-dong, president of LG Display, said this on the 26th when he met with reporters ahead of the ceremony for the 16th Display Day held at Lotte Hotel World in Songpa-gu, Seoul. Jeong said he would do his utmost to meet the outlook for a turnaround to profit this year and left open the possibility of investing in the 8.6-generation OLED production line, considered a next-generation organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology. The 8.6-generation, which uses a larger glass substrate than the current mainstay 6th-generation process, is regarded as a next-generation technology that maximizes production efficiency for panels used in IT devices such as laptops and tablets.
This year, LG Display is widely expected to turn a profit for the full year. According to financial information firm FnGuide, the company's annual operating profit outlook for this year is 757 billion won. LG Display has continued to post weak results, recording operating losses over the past three years.
However, with more of Apple's new iPhone models launching in the second half adopting OLED and an iPad with OLED slated for release, OLED shipments are expected to increase. OLED for Apple Watch is also expected to improve profitability as it is effectively supplied on an exclusive basis due to a rival's withdrawal from the business.
Jeong also left open the possibility of investing in 8.6-generation OLED. He said, "We are examining it from multiple angles, including whether the business really needs it, financial relations, and the competitive investment landscape," and added, "We will respond by efficiently utilizing the infrastructure we currently have."
Samsung Display and Chinese rival corporations are expanding investment in 8.6-generation production lines in preparation for the expansion of the IT OLED market. Samsung Display is investing 4.1 trillion won in Asan, South Chungcheong, to build an 8.6-generation IT OLED production line and will begin full-scale mass production in the third quarter of next year.
In June, LG Display said it would invest 1.26 trillion won in its Paju production facilities, marking the first such large-scale investment in four years since 2021. The funds were secured from the sale proceeds of the Guangzhou LCD plant, and more than half of the 2.2466 trillion won in proceeds will be invested in facilities for next-generation OLED technology. However, it has not yet formalized investment in an 8.6-generation production line.
Regarding the potential impact on the panel market of the "Micro RGB TV" recently released by Samsung Electronics, he said, "In the end, that is also LCD (liquid crystal display) technology, so I don't think it can match the picture quality of OLED, which is a self-emissive technology," adding, "OLED is OLED."
An RGB LED TV is based on the conventional LCD TV structure that applies an LCD panel and red (R), green (G), and blue (B) color filters. It is a non-self-emissive product that requires an external light source, and it is evaluated as having superior performance compared with existing mini LED-LCD TVs that use a white LED backlight, as it uses RGB light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as the backlight unit (BLU).