Financial - Page 26

Taiwan-based driver IC developer Novatek Microelectronics says that it expects shipments of AMOLED drivers will double from 3 million in Q1 2019 to 6 million in Q2 2019.

Novatek reported its financial results, saying that its last quarter was the best one in 11 years, as profits grew 34% from last year to $68.5 million. Growth at Novatek is fueled by strong demand for OLED drivers and TDDI chips.

LG Display announced its unaudited financial results for Q2 2019, and updated on its upcoming OLED projects.

First of all, LGD announced an additional investment of KRW 3 trillion ($2.5 billion) P10 10.5-Gen OLED TV fab in Paju. Last month it was reported that LG display has started to install some of the Oxide-TFT deposition equipment (supplied by Applied Materials and Jusung Engineering). The mass production at the first lines in the P10 fab is expected to begin in 2021. LG Display did not disclose any more details regarding this new $2.5 billion investment plan yet.

The United States Department of Energy (DoE) granted $1.05 million for OLEDWorks, allocated through the DoE's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The funds will be used to further improve efficiency and lower the costs of flexible OLED lighting panels, which will help reduce energy consumption while simultaneously providing healthier, unique lighting solutions that are cost competitive in the main stream lighting markets.

In November 2018 OLEDWorks announced that its first flexible OLED lighting panels are now commercially available. The OLEDWorks LumiCurve Wave are produced on Corning's 0.1mm thin Willow Glass flexible glass substrates. OLEDWorks says that the Wave panels are extremely thin and light and deliver the superb light quality and excellent color rendering that is uniquely achievable with OLED.

Japan Display (JDI) announced that it has finally secured the 80 billion Yen (around $740 million) bailout plan. The large investment will come from the China-based Harvest Group, Hong Kong-based activist investor Oasis Management and an unnamed JDI customer - which is likely to be Apple.

Japan Display says that it plans to hold a shareholders meeting on August 29th to formalize the bailout plan.

Samsung Electronics reported its financial results for Q2 2019. The company's operating profit totaled ₩6.5 trillion (around $5.6 billion). Interestingly Samsung reported a one-off gain of $684 million, which could be Apple's compensation for lower-than-agreen-on iPhone OLED panel orders.

Samsung's smartphone sales have been lower than expected, which is one of the factors behind the earnings miss. CLSA analysts expect Samsung Display's to enjoy a 47% growth in OLED sales in the next quarter as demand from Apple, Samsung and Chinese smartphone makers is expected to increase in Q3.

Taiwan-based Luminescence Technology (Lumtec) is set to debut today on the Taipei stock exchange emerging stock board. The company says that it plans to expand its OLED lighting production capacity in Q4 2019 from 150,000 50x35 mm panels per month to around 600,000 units.

Lumtec says that it sees a large demand coming from the automotive market for OLED lighting panels, and it expects its utilization rates to reach 100% in the current quarter. This means that the company sees around 450,000 panels shipping in this quarter, which seems highly optimistic, especially as it says that it has currently shipping samples for five companies with volume orders expected in 2020 and the demand from automotive companies is not likely to expand very quickly as first adoption comes from luxury cars.

DSCC published an interesting note, detailing the world's top 10 devices by flexible AMOLED sales in the first half of 2019. The list contains only three vendors: Samsung, Apple and Huawei.

Total flexible AMOLED revenues for these ten devices are almost $4.7 billion, and Samsung phones account for 53% ($2.5 billion). Apple has only 2 leading models, but accounts for 30% of the revenues ($1.4 billion) and Huawei phones generated $723 million in flexible AMOLED revenues.

Japan Display was supposed to get a $2.1 bailout deal led by Taiwan's TPK and the Harvest Group. TPK was supposed to invest $230 million, but the display maker announced that it decided not to invest in Japan Display after all. JDI also says that it has not yet received a positive commitment from other potential investors.

JDI did disclose that it approached Apple for help (JDI is a major LCD supplier to Apple) and Apple is considering to waive its debt, guarantee display orders and also invest around $185 million directly in JDI.

OLED driver maker MagnaChip has updated its Q2 2019 revenue guidance, saying that revenues from its OLED display driver business are expected to "substantially exceed" the company's previously estimation.

MagnaChip recently launched its latest 28 nm OLED Display Driver IC for smartphone displays, and the company also launched a new initiative to co-develop mobile OLED display technologies.

TADF and Hyperfluorescence developer Kyulux announced that it finalized its Series B financing round, having raised ¥1.5 billion ($31.8 million USD) from several companies and VCs. Kyulux says it will use the funds to further accelerate product development and strengthen its IP.

A couple of months ago Kyulux updated on its latest TADF device that achieves 200 hours of lifetime (LT95 at 1000 nits) and an EQE of 22% (at 1000 nits). The color point is 470 nm (which is not deep-blue, note). Kyulux also says that Wisechip is now ready to start producing the yellow HF PMOLED and is seeking customers.