Chinese OLED display manufacturers are catching up with South Korean giants LG and Samsung. This is reported by Nikkei Asia.
After dominating the liquid crystal display market, LG and Samsung started producing OLED panels for all categories of devices from smartphones to TVs and car systems in 2010.
According to DSCC (Display Supply Chain Consultants), in 2024, Samsung dominated the OLED panel market in terms of revenue with a 42.2% share, followed by LG Display with 23.9%, with a combined market share of over 66%.
But Chinese competitors are making progress. BOE and Visionox increased their market shares to 13.2% and 7.3%. The total market share of OLED panels held by Chinese manufacturers is 33%.
BOE is building an OLED panel plant in an effort to catch up with Samsung, with the goal of starting mass production in 2026. The company has invested 63 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) in the plant, which will produce state-of-the-art panels.
Chinese manufacturers are increasing their share in the production of small panels, for example, for smartphones, which are relatively easy to manufacture.
"If we are talking only about smartphone panels, China will surpass South Korea in terms of production capacity in a few years," says Yoshio Tamura, vice president of research at DSCC.
South Korean companies, on the other hand, are experiencing difficulties in the production of displays. Last week, LG Display reported an operating loss of 560.6 billion won ($391 million) for 2024. The company has been making losses for the third year in a row, and its LCD panel business, which accounts for almost 40% of sales, has been hit by price competition with Chinese manufacturers.
Samsung's display division earned an operating profit of 2.9 trillion won in January-September 2024, down 18.6% year-on-year.
Samsung and LG are aiming to outpace Chinese competitors in the high-end segment. According to Tamura, their advantage is "high quality and a wide range of products." The LG Display executive claims that the technological gap between South Korea and China is "about 10 years".