LG Display has made a new investment in a factory in Vietnam to increase the supply of POLED to Apple.
According to the display industry on the 8th, LG Display signed a memorandum of understanding with the city of Haiphong, Vietnam on the previous day (7th), and decided to make a facility investment worth $750 million (about 840 billion won) in the Haiphong OLED factory.
This investment is a measure to expand the amount of POLED that LG Display is supplying to Apple, and plans to begin work to expand facilities from next month.
An official in the display industry said, “LG Display, which started the iPhone business last year, is focusing its efforts on expanding POLED supply. In the case of a module assembly plant, equipment settings can be completed in up to six months, and operation can begin. The expansion investment is interpreted as a response to the next-generation iPhone released by Apple in the second half of the year.”
According to the actual market research company Stone Partners, LG Display supplied about 18 million POLED panels to Apple last year.
In the market, as Apple plans to increase shipments of next-generation iPhones to 250-270 million units this year, an 11% increase from the previous year, LG Display is expected to expand Apple’s business through expansion investments.
In this regard, LG Display also said, “The OLED-oriented mobile business will steadily solidify the business base this year. Based on internal capabilities, productivity improvement, and customer relations, we will minimize volatility during the off-season, We will make an annual improvement compared to the previous year.”
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Securities are expecting that LG Display will succeed in turning profitable in three years in the POLED business due to the Apple effect this year. For example, through a recent report, Korea Investment & Securities predicted sales of 4,824 trillion won and operating profit of 113 billion won as LG Display’s outlook for this year’s POLED business.
In a report, Jeong-Hwan Kim, a researcher at Korea Investment & Securities, said, “(The fourth quarter of last year), the plastic OLED business, whose sales doubled compared to the previous quarter due to an increase in shipments to North American smartphone customers, achieved a quarterly operating surplus for the first time.” The mobile OLED and OLED TV panel business that we have invested in will show the first annual operating profit from 2021.”