Financial - Page 4

UK-based OTFT display backplane developer SmartKem announced that it signed a collaboration agreement with based PMOLED-maker RiTdisplay, for the production of OTFT-based AMOLED displays. SmartKem further said that Innovate UK and the Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs will support this project with a grant of around $530,000.

Smartkem will provide its proprietary OTFT materials to RiTdisplay to integrate within its OLED displays. If successful, the project will create the world's first commercially ready AMOLED display made using organic transistors, which will outperform RiT's PMOLEDs with higher brightness, lower power consumption and higher resolutions. Both companies hope that the project will be completed in 2026. 

OLED lighting developer OLEDWorks announced that it has been awarded a $8.6 million US army project to develop high-performance OLED microdisplays for consumer and defense applications. The display is targeted specifically towards head-mounted display applications in the AR and VR markets.

OLEDWorks says that its microdisplay platform offers high brightness, full color, and excellent lifetime. The company says that it is developing three OLED microdisplay products. The company's displays are based on OLEDWorks' proprietary multi-stack (3, 4, and 5-stacks) OLED technology to OLED microdisplays.

LG Display says it plans to issue new shares, and raise around $970 million USD. The company plans to invest this capital in its OLED business, to meet the demand for advanced displays.

LG Display's strategic plan is to increase WOLED (large-area) display production by 20% compared to 2023. It also plans to increase its small and medium sized AMOLED business, but it seems LGD has not yet committed to expand production capacity further.

Universal Display Corporation reported its financial results for Q4 2023, with revenues of $158 million, and a net income of $62 million. For the whole year (2023), UDC reproted revenues of $576 million and net income of $203 million. The company ended 2023 with $800 million in cash and equivalents, and has increased its quarterly dividend.

UDC says that the market still suffers from soft spending in smartphone and premium TVs. UDC, however, says that it believes that the OLED industry is starting a new and exciting multiyear investment cycle.

Shanghai-based OLED microdisplay maker Lumicore announced that it has closed its series-A funding round, raising $100 million. Lumicore will use the funds to ramp-up its 8-inch production line in Nanjing, and introduce its first products to market.

Lumicore developed several OLED microdisplays, including a 2K 144Hz 1.32" display.  The company is also developing 4K microdisplays.

BOE Group says that profits in 2023 dropped almost 70% compared to 2023, as demand for displays is low. BOE says that its profit in 2023 will be in the range of 2.3 to 2.5 billion yuan (around $324 to $350 million USD). Including some nonrecurring items, the company expects to report a net loss of $77 - $100 million USD in 2023 (that's around 70% lower than the loss in 2022).

BOE says that its LCD business was more profitable in 2023 - which likely means that its OLED business is still incurring losses. BOE updates that it shipped almost 120 million flexible AMOLED displays in 2023 (in October it said it sold over 100 million).

The Korean government plans to add new tax incentives for strategic technologies, increasing the tax deduction possible to 40-50% for small and medium-sized companies, and 30-40% for large businesses. Korea's display sector is already protected as a strategic industry - and last year the government added OLED specifically as a national strategic technology.

Korea's Finance Ministry announced it plans to add tax incentives worth up to $711 million per year, as it hopes to attract more investment into new growth drivers and boost the local economy.

LG Display announced its financial results for Q4 2023, with an operating profit of almost $100 million - after 7 quarters of losses. LGD says that demand for both its smartphone displays and WOLED panels (TVs and monitors) has increased. OLED revenues amounted to 57% of the company's total revenues during the quarter. 

LG Display says that it expects market volatility to continue in 2024, due to prolonged unstable macroeconomic conditions. The company will be "strengthening the competitiveness of its OLED businesses", and it expects OLED panel shipments to grow 20% in 2024 compared to 2023. In the upcoming Q1 2024 quarter analysts expected earnings to weaken due to low seasonal demand.

BOE has been planning a 8.5-Gen flexible IT AMOLED Line for a couple of years, and in November 2023, following some delays, the company officially announced its plans for the new fab. Now we hear from China that the Chengdu local government, together with Chengdu's Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone, have signed the contact with BOE to build the new plant.

The total investment in the fab is expected to reach 63 billion Yuan (over $8.7 billion USD). The fab will have a capacity of 32,000 monthly substrates (2290x2620 mm), and is expected to begin production by Q4 2026 (total construction time will be 34 months, according to the plan).