By Kim Yoo-chul
Samsung Display plans to hike its investment in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that provide ultra high-definition (UHD) picture quality (UHD LCDs) by as much as 14 percent this year from a year ago to meet the rising demand for the panels .
The plan comes after Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest TV manufacturer, shifted its focus from OLED TVs to LCD-based UHD TVs, which it identified as the next cash cow in the TV segment.
“Samsung Display is still struggling to improve production yield defect rates in OLED panels,” said an official at Samsung Display by telephone. The company is putting more resources on strengthening its research and development (R&D) activites for large-sized OLED TVs.
“Higher costs are still another headache. As Samsung Electronics remains bullish about the outlook for UHD TVs, Samsung Display plans to increase its investment in LCD panels for UHD TVs by up to 14 percent,” he added.
According to DisplaySearch, a market research firm, Samsung Display will increase its annual shipment for UHD LCDs to 4.6 million units by this year from 200,000 that it shipped last year.
The firm invested around 3 trillion won in LCD panels last year.
The additional investment in LCDs will go mainly to its large LCD plant in Suzhou, southern China.
“Samsung planned to produce 17,000 glass sheets mainly for TVs throughout this year. However, this monthly production will increase to 80,000 glass sheets. Next year, we plan to operate the Suzhou plant, which has a monthly capacity of 110,000 sheets at full capacity,” said another Samsung official.
Samsung Display spokesman said it plans to produce 55,000 glass sheets by the end of the first half of this year on a monthly basis.
While the outlook for the global LCD market remains uncertain owing to a decline in the demand for TVs and the rising investment by budget Chinese manufacturers, Samsung Electronics is pushing ahead with UHD TVs.
Samsung Electronics co-CEO Yoon Boo-keun said the world’s top TV manufacturer expects the supply and demand in the global TV market to balance, given the healthy demand for premium TVs in developed and emerging markets.
A PR team at Samsung Display said its investment plan in LCD panels for this year has yet to be finalized.