According to the Financial Times 21**, after conquering the LCD (liquid crystal display) screen market, Chinese display manufacturers are now attacking the last bastion of South Korea's technological superiority - OLED (organic light-emitting diode) field. Deeply aware that its leading OLED technology is facing the risk of being weakened by Chinese companies, the two major South Korean display giants, Samsung and LG, plan to "hold together" to cooperate in the development of Chinese enterprises to cope with the competition of Chinese enterprises and compete for the dominance of the global display market.
The report mentions that Samsung, which closed all LCD factories in China as early as 2021, will rely on its domestic rivals to produce more panels in China this year. For companies that once dominated the industry, it has become a "battle for survival". This extraordinary partnership comes as LG is looking to ** its remaining LCD factories in China.
On January 28, local time, Samsung Display and others held an art exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, showing the AI fusion of OLED and QD-OLED as the medium of ** art Figure from Visual China.
According to the Financial Times, under a series of active investments, Samsung and LG rose in the early 2000s, overthrowing the domination of Japan's old display companies and dominating the global display market. They relied on their own display business for their TV and smartphone divisions** panels, but this pattern was then broken by the emergence of Chinese alternatives.
According to data from the Korea Display Industry Association (KDIA) and the UK-based market research institute OMDIA, China has overtaken South Korea as the world's largest display manufacturer.
Chinese mainland is shown in red, and South Korea is the darkest blue, from the Financial Times
In the fierce competition of Chinese enterprises, Korean panel manufacturers have gradually withdrawn from the LCD ** chain. In the past two years, two South Korean companies, Samsung and LG, have shifted their investment to focus on OLED displays for high-end TVs, smartphones and tablets, as well as next-generation micro OLED displays for virtual and augmented reality devices such as Apple's Vision Pro headset. LG Display is also the world's only large-scale manufacturer of large-scale OLED panels.
But now the two companies find themselves under pressure in the OLED space as well. The Financial Times mentioned that BOE, China's leading display company, will use the latest production technology in its new factory in Chengdu, which is positioned in the flexible display industry, to compete with Samsung for the qualification of Apple's OLED panels for the next generation of iPads and Macbooks.
Comprehensive KDIA and OMIDIA data show that China has firmly occupied a dominant position in the LCD field and is also developing rapidly in the field of OLED displays. In the first half of 2023, Chinese mainland's market share in the OLED field will be 256%。
The second darkest blue part is South Korea.
At the 2023 World Display Industry Conference held in September last year, Chen Yanshun, chairman of BOE, quoted data from third-party institutions and said that after the LCD industry ranked first in the world, BOE continued to catch up with Korean manufacturers in the OLED field, and domestic companies are still in the stage of capacity ramp-up in OLED.
According to the monthly tracking report of flagship smartphones released by Display **Chain Consulting (DSCC) on January 30, thanks to the successive launch of new folding screen phones by Chinese mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei, BOE performed well in foldable panel shipments in the fourth quarter of 2023, with a market share of up to 42%, surpassing Samsung, which has almost maintained the first place since 2019, which fell from 76% in the third quarter to 36%, the lowest level since the first quarter of 2021. In the fourth quarter of last year, BOE's share of the foldable panel market was only 4%.
However, the agency**, Samsung may return to the top in the first quarter of this year, and said that Samsung may launch **lower foldable phones within the year to solve the panel inventory problem.
On September 6, 2023, Chengdu Western International Expo City, BOE 173"X-Fold Cross Fold OLED image from Visual China.
Nam Sang-uk, a researcher at the Korea Industrial Research Institute (KIET), said: "Samsung and LG need each other, because the all-out display war between Chinese and Korean companies has spread to the high-end market. ”
According to the analysis of the Financial Times, the procurement cooperation between the two South Korean companies may be further strengthened in the next step. And this new partnership is also a "lifeline" for LG, which has lost money for seven consecutive quarters before finally turning a profit in the last quarter of 2023.
South Korea's display industry is facing the same fate as Japan in this $160 billion global market, the report quoted analysts, who mentioned "Joled," a joint venture between Panasonic and Sony's high-end display business. Unable to match the level of investment in South Korea, the Japanese OLED panel "Light of Hope" finally declared bankruptcy last year with a debt of 2$500 million.
Park Chong-Hoon, head of research at Standard Chartered Bank in Seoul, said, "Just as South Korea has surpassed Japan to become the leader in the display industry, China is likely to replace us with its large domestic market, abundant capital and technological development advantages." ”
And this phenomenon will not be confined to the display market, China is catching up quickly in other capital-intensive industries and will soon overtake South Korea in most key manufacturing industries. He further added that the display battle shows that South Korea has to make broader efforts to maintain its technological advantage over China, from chips and batteries to smartphones and shipbuilding.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer.com, and it is not allowed to be unauthorized and shall not be allowed.