Samsung Display to close LCD business due to competition from Chinese, Taiwanese brands

Samsung Display will close its liquid-crystal display (LCD) business in June due to a declining global competitive edge because of cheaper products made by its Chinese and Taiwanese counterparts.

The decision by Samsung Group's display subsidiary occurred six months earlier than projected, owing in part to significant losses from decreasing LCD pricing.

The average price index of LCD panels, evaluated against 100 in January 2014, would decline to 36.6 in September of this year, according to Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), a market research group in the United States. The figure has fallen further from a record low of 41.5 in April of this year and is now 58% lower than the record high of 87 in June 2021.

Samsung Electronics, the main customer of Samsung Display goods, was also involved, collaborating with overseas LCD suppliers such as BOE Technology Group, a Chinese electronic components company, and AU Optronics Corp. (AUO), a Taiwanese LCD panel maker.

It planned to liquidate its LCD business in late 2020, however, the plan was delayed at the request of its parent firm, Samsung Electronics, due to a rapid surge in LCD pricing caused by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Samsung Display will stop producing LCDs for large TV screens and instead focus on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and quantum dot (QD) displays.

Employees from the LCD unit are likely to be moved to the QD business.

The display affiliate was founded in 1991 as an LCD commercial arm of Samsung Electronics. It was founded in 2012 as Samsung Display and has subsequently joined with three local and Japanese manufacturers of active-matrix organic light-emitting diodes (AMOLED) to produce advanced varieties.