Samsung Electronics will turn to Chinese and Taiwanese LCD makers after its sister company Samsung Display stops making the panels at the end of the year.
The company will mainly source its LCD panels from CSoT in China and AU Optronics in Taiwan, following its decision to stop all internal production at its own facilities. The two firms will supply LCD panels for Samsung's QLED LCD TVs and most of its mid-range TVs by the end of the year, South Korean media site Guru reported this week.
Another publication, Digitimes, reported earlier this month that Samsung will source its LCD panels from the Japanese firm Sharp, which is now owned by China’s Foxconn. However, Guru cited anonymous company sources that contradict that report.
AU Optronics is expected to take the honour of becoming the main supplier for Samsung’s high-end 4K and 8K QLED TVs, Guru said.
It’s no surprise that Samsung is looking to outsource LCD panel production, as Samsung Display has been winding down its own production for some time. In fact, in 2019, Samsung Display only provided around a third of the LCD panels in Samsung TVs that year, with the rest coming from third-parties.
CSoT’s role as a supplier is no surprise either, as Samsung owns a stake in the company, which is majority-owned by another TV maker, China’s TCL. Interestingly, TCL also has a minority stake in Samsung Display’s Chinese factory.
Samsung Display is winding down its LCD operations in order to focus on next-generation display technologies that it believes will dominate in future. They include QD-OLED, which is based on blue OLEDs with quantum dot colour converters, and MicroLED, which is baased on tiny RGB LEDs. The company is also rumoured to be exploring the potential of QNED display technology, which is based on blue LEDs with QD colour converters, though it has never confirmed this.
