Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
Consumer preference for flagship devices gives advantage for LG Display
LG Display plant in Paju, Gyeonggi Province / Courtesy of LG Display
By Nam Hyun-woo
Apple's premium phones to give boost to OLED shipment
The growing consumer preference for flagship devices is giving LG Display a relative edge, as its focus on OLED displays across smartphones and other consumer electronics has left the company well positioned to benefit from the trend.
According to industry officials, Thursday, the display industry is facing mounting cost pressure as surging memory prices are forcing device makers to keep their bill of materials (BOM) costs under control by demanding price concessions from other component suppliers.
Market tracker TrendForce said in a recent report that memory prices for smartphones surged by up to 200 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, raising memory’s share of total smartphone BOM costs to 30 to 40 percent from the previous 10 to 15 percent.
While rising memory costs have driven up the prices of a wide range of consumer electronics and are set to put pressure on smartphones as well, demand for premium products has remained relatively resilient.
According to Omdia, Samsung Electronics and Apple ranked first and second, respectively, in global smartphone shipments in the first quarter. Among them, Apple's shipments increased 10 percent year-on-year, even though its average selling price reached $1,129, the highest among smartphone makers during the period.
The iPhone 17 series on display at the Apple Store in New York City, Sept. 19, 2025. Reuters-Yonhap
The market tracker expects iPhone shipments to increase 6.6 percent year-on-year this year, saying the global smartphone market is undergoing a structural shift from a volume-driven market to one centered on higher-value products.
A similar trend is being observed in the TV market. TrendForce said the share of storage in total TV production costs has risen to 20 percent from less than 3 percent before the recent chip price hike, adding that TV makers are likely to focus on larger, higher-end models to cushion the impact of rising memory costs.
As the market shifts toward premium devices, Korean display makers are gaining a relative advantage due to their concentration on OLED technology, which is mostly used in premium devices.
LG Display has steadily increased the share of OLED products in its sales mix over the past several years. OLED accounted for 40 percent of the company's annual revenue in 2022, rising to 55 percent in 2024 to surpass the halfway mark for the first time. The figure further increased to 61 percent last year and remained close to 60 percent in the first quarter of this year, showing the company's continued focus on its OLED strategy.
Rival Samsung Display's expected exclusive supply of OLED panels for Apple's first foldable iPhone could also benefit LG Display. According to IM Securities analyst Chung Won-suk, the resulting shift in Samsung Display's production capacity is expected to boost LG Display's shipments of OLED panels for Apple's bar-type iPhone 18 lineup by around 5 to 10 percent year-on-year.
An LG Display official introduces the company's tandem W-OLED display in this handout photo released, June 22. Courtesy of LG Display
The outlook for mid- and large-sized OLED panels is also expected to remain strong, because LG Display maintains a diversified OLED portfolio across a wide range of applications, including IT devices, automobiles, TVs and gaming monitors. In particular, its W-OLED panels, which the company was the first to commercialize, accounted for 82 percent of the OLED TV market in 2025, making them the dominant display technology in the premium TV segment.
“Recent increases in chip prices are unlikely to have a significant impact on sales of premium smartphones, which should support LG Display's panel shipments,” Samsung Securities analyst Chang Jung-hoon said.
“In the large-sized OLED business, strong sales of gaming monitors, which carry higher margins than TVs, are also expected to contribute to profitability.”