As we reported last month, TCL CSoT officially announced that it has agreed to buy LG Display's last LCD production line in Guangzhou, China, for $1.5 billion (10.8 billion Yuan).
TCL CSoT will acquire 80% of LG Display's 8.5-Gen LCD production line, and 100% of its LCD module line in Guangzhou. The two companies plan to complete the deal by the end of March 2025. LG's LCD production line has a capacity to produce 180,000 TV panels per month, most of these sized 55" and up (about 6% of the total LCD panel market), and had a net profit of $85 million last year over $900 million in revenues. The module factory can produce 2.3 million units per month. The two factories serve customers such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Skyworth, and more.
LG Display will still retain 20% of the LCD production line, and also some 8.5-Gen LCD production lines in Korea that target IT panels (laptops and monitors), however the company is clearly focusing more and more on its OLED business. It could be that following this sale it will have more resources to divert to its planned 8.6-Gen IT AMOLED line, which it hasn't committed to yet, but will need to do so soon if it wants to retain its advantage with tandem OLEDs for this market.
