Insider sources said, "At present, the OLED business has been split, and Samsung has begun planning to exit the LCD business, because this content not only does not have much prospects, but is also unprofitable." The OLED division's independence is part of Samsung's organizational streamlining, which aims to cut off its unprofitable LCD business. Furthermore, Samsung is no longer optimistic about the prospects of LCD and has quietly initiated an exit mechanism.
It is reported that Samsung internally believes that this time it will separate its OLED and LCD businesses. Lifting is a "strategic retreat" for the overall development of Samsung's LCD business - when looking for ways to boost the sluggish LCD business, OLED cannot be put into crisis as well. However, it is worth noting that although the profit margin of LCD display technology is now reduced, this does not mean that Samsung has decided to withdraw from the LCD market. In this regard, some foreign media said that Samsung Display will not give up the LCD business in the short term, especially in the HDTV TV product line. At the same time, there is news that since Samsung has always insisted on using LCD screens in the TV market, it is not ruled out that Samsung Electronics will directly acquire the LCD business from Samsung Display to ensure the maintenance of the business. It is reported that Samsung Electronics currently holds nearly 85% of the shares of Samsung Display.
According to a report by barron`s.com last week, Samsung plans to shut down its seventh-generation LCD panel production line "L7-1" before the end of this year. This production line accounts for approximately 15% of Samsung's overall LCD panel production capacity and 3% of global production capacity. . Spinning off OLED can help Samsung reorganize its existing non-profit business, especially as the profit margins of producing and manufacturing LCD screens for mobile devices have become increasingly narrow as Chinese competitors are suppressed by price wars.
Previously, it was reported that after some twists and turns, Samsung finally won the OLED display order for the new iPhone in 2017. And as the new iPhone debuts on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, the edge-to-edge curved OLED display may become one of its core highlights. Therefore, the industry attaches great importance to the specific direction of Apple’s OLED big order. Currently, Apple’s main OLED product line is the Apple Watch, and as the world’s main supplier of OLED screens, Samsung is also regarded as the main beneficiary of the wearable device display technology market.
It is still unknown when Samsung will officially announce this plan, but reports indicate that Samsung has started to turn off some LCDs panel production line, and plans to sell LCD production lines to Chinese companies. From the above, we can see that Samsung is accelerating its transition from LCD to OLED, but the process is being kept low-key and unannounced.
ANNA