China’s Gen10.5 Investment, Korean Display Companies’ Countermeasure?

At the 10^th National Research Development Industry General Workshop in Display (8-10 July) in Muju, South Korea, industry-academy experts gathered and held a discussion on the future display strategy under the heading ‘Korean Display Industry Crisis, What is the Solution?’.

At the previous keynote speech, vice president of LG Display, Yoon Sooyoung explained that the key points for the third revolution will be design innovation, design freedom differentiated though real image, and picture quality that can closely resemble visual reality. He also added that the third display is OLED that can actualize various advantages such as transparency, flexibility, and high picture quality at once, and considering material/component and mass production technology status, OLED will also be able to achieve competitive prices soon.

Samsung Display’s executive director Hye Yong Chu forecast next generation display will be smart display, human friendly, holographic, and disruptive innovation. Particularly she estimated that thorough size and design innovation, flexible display will be able to create new application and market and that flexible OLED will form the core.

The shared opinion of Samsung Display and LG Display, key Korean display companies, at the keynote session was Korean display industry’s need to lead the next generation display market in order to prepare for China’s pursuit and requirement of active participation and cooperation from industry-academy to achieve this.

During the panel discussion that followed the keynote session, many different opinions were suggested regarding Korean display industry status from academy-industry. Of China’s BOE’s Gen10.5 investment, Samsung Display’s Chu disclosed that investment at the right moment was more important than preemptive investment; the focus will be curved and edge display market expansion and widening the technology gap with latecomers, and investment will be carefully considered before making a decision. LG Display’s Yoon also explained that areas where cost innovation are possible are limited even with investment is carried out as the current display market is different from previous ones. He added that Gen10.5 investment has to be deliberated and emphasized that focus should be on how to make OLED competitive.

Against the China’s aggressive investment on Gen8 or higher, Samsung Display and LG Display’s positions are analyzed to be of same opinion of carefully considering investment while pioneering the market maximizing the existing technology prowess.