LG Display is keen to wash its hands off of its last remaining LCD display manufacturing plant, and has started negotiating with prospective buyers over a possible sale. It’s believed to be discussing terms of TCL CSOT, which is the display-making subsidiary of the TV maker TCL
The company is reportedly asking for $1.5 billion (around £1.17 billion) to sell the Guangzhou, China-based plant, but it’s not clear if TCL CSOT will be willing to match that price, or if another company might step in with a higher bid.
By selling off its last LCD TV display factory, LG Display will be free to commit 100% of its energies to manufacturing OLED television panels instead, and the news comes as no surprise.
The display maker has long hinted at its plans to abandon LCD in favor of OLED and has already made substantial progress to delivering on those ambitions. The company shut down the last LCD TV panel production line at its factory in Paju, South Korea, in 2022, saying at the time it intended to refit that hub to make OLED TV panels instead.
In its most recent, second-quarter earnings report, LG Display once again reiterated its plans to focus on OLED, saying it’s looking to “strengthen its OLED-oriented business competitiveness and expand the proportion of its high-value products”. It added that it’s main focus will be on “premium” TV products and smaller OLED displays for mobile devices.
LG Display’s parent company, LG Electronics, discussed similar plans, saying in its own earnings call that it will focus on OLED going forward. It said it’s expecting premium OLED TVs to “outperform the broader market” in the third quarter, and will “aim to maintain operational efficiency by mimimizing cost burdens”, by ramping up OLED TV sales.
That’s not to say LG Electronics will stop selling LCD TVs altogether. The company still sells millions of LCD-based NanoCell televisions each year, but rather than make its own panels it will instead procure them from Chinese suppliers.
Those Chinese suppliers are the main reason why both LG Display and Samsung Display have decided to quit the LCD panel making business. Chinese manufacturers can mass produce LCD panels at more competitive prices than either of the South Korean firms has been able to do, which means their own LCD factories have become significantly less profitable.
LG Display will not only gain a significant cash lump sum from selling its sole surviving LCD TV panel plant, but will also free up cash to invest elsewhere. It’s not clear where that money will go, but it seems likely that, given LG’s commitments to OLED, it will have more cash to reinvest into its OLED technology.
Of course, it’s unlikely that LG Display's decision to exit the LCD business will sound the death knell for LCD TVs. While OLED continues to demonstrate significant advances, LCD panel makers have also kept on innovating and improving the older display technology too. It’s notable that Sony, which used Samsung Display’s QD-OLED tech as the basis of its flagship TVs in 2022 and 2023, has ditched OLED altogether this year in favor of Mini-LED for its premium model.
