LG’s plans show its continued investment in OLED TVs, but the technology could also become a major source of income, if – as rumored – Apple is indeed planning to adopt OLED technology for its iPhones from 2018. The report said that this was a driving force behind LG Display’s decision Thursday to spend $8.7 billion on a new OLED plant in South Korea.
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Total investment in the plant, to be built in Paju near the border with North Korea, is expected to top KRW 10 trillion (roughly Rs. 58,036 crores), the company said. The completed plant will be the size of 14 football fields, and will be 100 meters high.
IHS, the market research firm, forecasts the global OLED panel market will grow to Dollars 29.1 billion in 2022 from USD 8.7 billion in 2014. The expansion is projected to cost KRW 1.84 trillion, and production will start in the first half of 2018.
The investment is the latest in a series of efforts by LG to pull together resources for the development of OLEDs, which are thinner and more flexible than conventional panels like plasmas and LCDs.
An investment in OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screens is a bet that consumers will want better image quality.
The company’s plan of changing their devices’ screen to OLED might be supplied by Samsung and LG. Apple’s adoption of OLED offers a huge business opportunity, and the company is negotiating with the USA giant over supply deals.
“Samsung Display-manufactured OLED displays have so far been used in all Galaxy flagship smartphones”.
Is the growing OLED display market worth billions? Also, flexible OLED displays allow a wide range of device design. 30% of Japan Display’s sales are made to Apple and would see a significant drop when Apple finally makes the switch in 2018. Hopefully the expense of these displays will be driven down with more manufacturing coming on board and more manufacturers using these displays.
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A group of 200 employees at Samsung Display, which already provides OLED screens for the Apple Watch, created a standalone team working exclusively on screens for Apple products, people with direct knowledge of the matter said in April.
