Financial - Page 14

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin reported its financial results for Q3 2021. Revenues were $5.8 million in the quarter, down from $7.3 million in Q3 2021. Operating loss in the quarter was $3.3 million (down from $1.9 million in Q2 2021).

eMagin says that during the quarter it continued to grow its ENVG-B program revenues and also its medical customer revenues, but in total its revenues decreased due to timing issues of certain military orders, and also $1.3 million in shipments were delayed to Q4 due to to production issues and unexpected manufacturing tool downtime.

DSCC says that it expects OLED investments (new production capacity) to increase in the IT space, as demand for laptops, tablets and monitors increases and OLED penetration increases. There is much room for growth in this market - DSCC estimates that the current OLED penetration into the IT display market is just 1.4% in 2021. DSCC expects to see fabs focused on the IT markets accounting for 37% of 2022-2025 OLED equipment spending.

Helped by spending in IT markets, 2024 is expected to be the largest year for OLED equipment spending since 2017. Interestingly, DSCC says that OLED spending in China is has slowed due to a lack of penetration, but OLED spending in Korea continues to increase. Korea’s OLED spending is expected to grow by 637% in 2022 and another 50% in 2023 to $4.4B.

Universal Display reported its financial results for Q3 2021. Revenues were a record $143.6 million, up from $117.1 million in Q3 2020 and net profit was $46.1 million (up from $40.5 million from Q3 2020). The company has about $789 million in cash and equivalents, the it reiterates its full-year 2021 revenue guidance to be between $530 million and $560 million.

Regarding its blue PHOLED R&D effort, UDC says it is making "excellent progress", and the company believes that a commercial blue material is a question of when and not if.

Samsung Electronics reported its financial results for Q3 2021, with record quarterly sales ($63 billion USD) and an increase of 31% in net profits (to $10.5 billion).

The strong performance was mostly thanks to Samsung's chip business and the weak Korean won. Samsung's display business also enjoyed a good quarter, with strong sales of small and medium-sized OLED panels. Samsung's large-area LCD business, though, posted losses as prices of LCD panels declined.

According to a new report from Korea, Samsung has decided to build a new flexible OLED 6-Gen (1500x1850 mm) production line (A4E, although this could be a tentative name), which will be located at Samsung's Asan production complex.

The new fab will have a monthly capacity of 30,000 substrates. The first phase (15,000 substrates) will enter production by the end of 2022, and the second phase a year later. Total investment is estimated at over 1 trillion KRW (around $854 million USD).

According to reports from Korea, P&H Tech signed a long-term contact with Dupont, for the supply of OLED materials. The deal, worth $6 million USD (paid up front), will last until 2028.

It is not clear what kind of materials will P&H Tech supply - whether these will be OLED intermediates or OLED stack materials, as P&H supplies both. The company did say that the materials it will supply to Dupont "can improve the life and luminance of OLED panels".

Earlier this year, OLED driver IC developer MagnaChip announced that it is being acquired by China-based Wise Road Capital, for $1.4 billion. We reported that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is looking into blocking this deal, and now the CFIUS made its final decision.

The CFIUS stated that "It has confirmed the national security risks that may arise in the United States from the acquisition of MagnaChip by the Chinese private equity fund". This pretty much cancels the potential acquisition.

LG Display says it will expand the capacity of its OLED assembly plant in Vietnam in a $1.4 billion investment.

The OLED plant, located in Hai Phong City, is used to assemble OLED panels - for mobile devices, TVs and automotive displays. The plant's capacity will grow from around 10 million monthly units to 13-14 million.

OLED microdisplay maker eMagin has been developing direct-emission OLED microdisplay (also called directly-patterned, or dPd) for many years, and is considered to be the leading company - the closest one to commercialize such a display. A dPd will enable much higher efficiency/brightness compared to current designs based on color filters.

In the past eMagin reported of several leading companies that have licensed the technology and/or are working with the company towards the design of custom dPd OLED displays for future AR/VR products. In 2017 for example eMagin reported of a Tier-1 CE company that licensed its dPd tech, and in 2020 the company said it started a new consumer-related AR development project for a next-generation display for a Tier-1 customer.

A few weeks ago LG Display noted that it is reviewing a plan to expand the capacity of its mobile OLED production plants, and today LGD announced its formal plan to invest 3.3 trillion Won (around $2.8 billion) to expand pOLED capacity.

LGD will expand its 6-Gen AMOLED production capacity, and this expansion project will finish by March 2024. LGD did not provide any more details about this plan. LGD is enjoying high demand for its mobile AMOLED displays, with Apple one of its major customers.