By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
LG Display, the world’s No. 2 supplier of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, is making all-out efforts to continue its bullish momentum.
A high-ranking company official plans to visit Japan soon to have supply talks with Sony.
``The official will fly to Japan for talks with Sony officials about ways of supplying our panels,’’ an LG Display official said Friday.
The remarks are in line with LG Display’s current strategy to find bigger clients following Dutch-based electronics giant Philips’ continuous lowering of its stakes in the joint venture.
Concerns were mounting over LG’s overseas clients relationships after Philips left the highly-competitive North American TV market due to deepening ``price-wars’’ with such industry leaders as Samsung Electronics and Sony.
Philips cut its stake in LG Display, formerly LG.Philips LCD, to 13.2 percent and changed the company’s name.
``Panasonic is seeking ways to buy more panels from LG Display because the company eyes a bigger presence in the global LCD TV market, while escaping from the currently stalled 7 percent market share in the business across the globe,’’ a ranking Panasonic official said.
Philips has clarified its intention to maintain a ``healthy partnership’’ with the South Korean supplier because it is still planning to strengthen its TV business focusing on small- and medium-sized TV sets.
``Strengthening tie-up with Taiwanese players is not enough for us. What we need is to secure bigger TV makers to sell our panels,’’ another LG official said.
Meanwhile, LG Display has developed the world’s first TFT roll-printing technology that can replace the photolithography process. Unlike the costly photolithography process, the environment-friendly technology used in TFT-LCD fabrication will save material and equipment costs.
``We will invest more to develop energy-efficient and cost-cutting technology to spur our current and next businesses including flexible display parts,’’ said Chung In-jae, the company’s executive vice president. ``We need more ways to cut costs.’’
The company also bought a 19.9 percent stake in Avaco for 6.1 billion won Tuesday. The local equipment company mainly produces sputters, a key component in LCD manufacturing process. The sputter market has so far been dominated by Japanese and U.S. companies.