Chinese OLED makers target share of Korean-dominated market

Chinese display makers are eyeing the Korea-dominated large OLED market through cooperation with Japanese companies.

China's TCL CSOT has formed a business partnership with JOLED, a Japanese display company, to develop large OLED panels for TVs jointly.

The funding will reach 20 billion yen with TCL CSOT securing a 10.76 percent stake in JOLED from the new shares the latter will issue.

The partnership plans to produce large OLED panels through the inkjet printing method.

While South Korea's LG Display is monopolizing the large OLED market, Chinese firms have carved a niche in the small and medium-sized OLED market.

However, experts say that there are still technical limitations in producing large OLED panels via the inkjet printing method.

Chinese companies are aggressively investing in the large OLED business with strong support from the Chinese government.

BOE is investing one billion yuan in developing large OLED technologies to mass-produce OLEDs for TVs by 2024.

HKC is targetting a mass-production of large OLEDs in Hunan Province, China, from 2021.

CSOT is also pondering when to make large-scale investments in large OLED test lines.

According to the prediction, Chinese companies will catch up with their Korean competitors in five years.

Market researcher DSCC expects China's OLED market share to reach 50 percent in 2024, to overtake Korea's 45 percent.

Last year, Korea had a 76 percent market share versus China's 22 percent.