Samsung Display will finally shut down its last remaining liquid-crystal display manufacturing lines in June. The company’s LCD display business has been slowly hobbled for years by rival firms from China and Taiwan that produce cheaper products.
Korea Times said the decision to close down the LCD display business for good comes six months earlier than expected, as the unit is delivering growing losses amid falling prices.
Data from Display Supply Chain Consultants, a U.S. market researcher, shows that the average price index of LCD panels will fall to 36.6 in September, measured against a score of 100 in January 2014. The index had already hit a record low of 41.5 points in April, down 58% from its record high of 87 in June 2021.
Samsung Display was reported to be considering quitting the LCD display business back in 2020, only for the COVID-19 pandemic to create both shortages and renewed demand for LCD TVs and boosted prices significantly. That promoted Samsung Display to stay in the game for longer. However, that boon has now tapered off completely, and the price of LCD TVs is falling fast.
Samsung Display cannot manufacture LCD display panels as cheaply as some Chinese rivals and has therefore been losing customers. Its most significant buyer is its parent firm Samsung Electronics, which is now itself turning to the Chinese supplier BOE Technology Group and Taiwan-based AU Optronics Corp.
Samsung Display will therefore no longer produce LCD displays for large TV screens and instead switch its focus to OLED and quantum-dot displays, Korea Times reported.
South Korea’s other big display maker, LG Display, is also said to be on the verge of quitting the LCD display panel business. A report earlier this month said the company has drastically cut back on its input of glass substrates at its LCD assembly lines in Paju, South Korea and Guangzhou, China, to make room for more OLED display production.
LG Display hasn’t quit the business completely, for now, but analysts believe it’s likely to do so in the coming months as declining LCD prices hinder its profitability.
