Financial

Poland-based OLED material developer Noctiluca announced that it has signed a joint development agreement (JDA) with a subsidiary of the world’s second-largest TV manufacturer and a leader in display technology from China, focused on industrializing printed OLED technologies. This is likely to be TCL CSoT's Juhua printing subsidiary. TCL CSoT recently started to produced inkjet printed OLEDs.

Noctiluca and TCL CSoT will work together to adopt Noctiluca's proprietary chemical compound into TCL's OLED displays. The company does not detail what kind of materials will be tested in this agreement. The company develops both TADF/HF OLED emitters and also EIL materials for blue OLED emission.

In 2022, we reported that US- and China-based OLED display maker Royole is in financial problems. The company did not manage to raise funds, and started laying-off many of its employees, following several months it did not pay any wages. The company is no longer in business.

Earlier today Royle started a public auction to sell off its assets. The company is using he public Taobao's Ali Asset Platform, and have asked a starting price of 1.23 billion yuan (almost $170 million USD). As of now, there are no bids for the asset, which includes 12 real estate properties and the OLED production equipment. If the auction fails, Royole will likely launch another auction with a reduced starting price.

Kyulux announced that it has singed a capital and business alliance agreement with Nippon Soda, to establish a mass production system for TADF OLED emitter materials. Nippon Soda will take an equity stake in Kyulux and will engage in process development and capital investment toward establishing the mass production system.

This will be the world's first mass production and stable supply system for TADF materials. Kyulux aims to achieve full-scale mass production of its Hyperfluoresence emitter system by 2025, and this will be an important step forward as it will require a stable supply of TADF materials. 

LG Display announced that it will invest $1 billion to increase its OLED module fab capacity in Vietnam's Hai Phong Economic Zone. This will bring LGD's total investment in Vietnam to date to $5.65 billion.

LG Display first built its Hai Phong facility in 2016, and it then expanded capacity several times. The last capacity increase was announced in 2021.

Towards the end of 2023, BOE officially announced its plans for a 8.6-Gen flexible LTPO AMOLED line in Chengdu. The agreement with Chengdu's local government was signed in early 2024, and in April BOE announced it is starting to construct the new fab. A few weeks ago BOE said it finished the construction of the main outer structure in this project, and that the company is on track to finish the fab by May 2026, with mass production expected by October 2026 - and full production in 2029.

Universal Display announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2024. Revenues reached $161.6 million (up from $141 million a year ago), while its net income reached $67 million (up from $52 million a year ago). At the end of the quarter, UDC had $930 million in cash and equivalents.

UDC issued guidance for the whole of 2024, saying its revenues will be in the range of $625 million to $645 million. This is a lower guidance than its previous issued one UDC is on track for a record year in 2024, with revenues up around 16% from 2023.

Samsung Display announced that it has developed a new technology that can recover around 80% of the quantum dots ink used in its QD-OLED production process. The recovered inks is refined through advanced synthesis technology that revives its purity and optical properties. The company will apply this technology, to its process and it is expected to save around 10 billion Won (around $7.3 million USD) each year in QD materials cost.

It turns out that even though the QD layers are inkjet printed, there is still significant waste of materials, as around 20% of the total QD ink used in the process remains in the nozzles and cannot be used. This new technology will enable SDC to make its QD-OLED panels more competitive with other large-area panel technologies.

US-based Ares Materials announced that it Japan's Denka invested in the company, with an aim to expand its high-functional materials business. Denka invested via its corporate VC that is jointly managed with Pegasus Tech Ventures.

Ares Materials developed a design technique that utilizes materials informatics (AI) for using enethiols as a raw material and possesses the technology to produce high-performance optical films using the design technique. The company says its optical films offer high performance, low cost and a reduced environmental impact.

LG Display reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2024. Revenues increased 43% over last year, reaching 6.8 billion Won (almost $5 billion USD), while the net loss amounted to 337 billion Won or $244 million USD (down from 775 billion Won in Q3 2023).

LGD continues to shift its business to OLED technology, with the proportion of OLED products rising 16% in the year, reaching 58% of LGD's revenues.

In this article, we examine the theoretical question of whether or not it makes sense for LG Display and Samsung Display to merge, into one company.

Note that we have no indications that such a merger is even considered by the two companies, but we feel this is a fascinating topic that should be explored, and is supported by several strong arguments.

We'll start with a short introduction to the two companies, then see why there are many reasons to pursue a merger, then explain the reasons against a possible merger, and finally detail the current financial situations of both companies.

Samsung Display and LG Display

Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) is a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. SDC is a leader in OLED production, with a market share of over 40% in the small OLED display market (the second largest player, BOE, holds a market share of around 15%). SDC produces over 300 million AMOLED displays per year - supplying them to Apple's iPhones and tablets, Samsung Electronics Galaxy phones, and many more. The Company also produces larger-area QD-OLED panels for TVs and gaming monitors, and has a capacity of producing around a million TV panels per year. SDC no longer produces any LCDs. SDC does produce microLED displays (but on a very small scale, this is currently a strictly next-gen display technology), and the company develops OLED microdisplays (and also holds OLED microdisplay producer eMagin which it acquired in 2023 for $243 million).