LG Display reported disappointing financial results for Q1 2019 - with an operating loss of $113 million. LG Display warns that the whole of 2019 will fall short of expectations - due to high costs of its new OLED fabs, weak LCD panel prices and low adoption of its smartphone OLEDs.
LGD's smartphone OLED business still suffers from low yields and low fab utilization as the company finds it hard to secure design wins and compete with Samsung Display. Some reports even suggest that LGD is thinking about shutting down its flexible OLED smartphone business.
The main positives for LGD are its OLED TV shipments that continue to rise (LGD says OLED TV revenue will rise to 30% of its total TV revenue in 2019, up from 20% in 2018). LGD sees significant growth in automotive display revenues and expects to start shipping automotive OLEDs in H2 2019.
LG Display says that it will continue in its efforts to shifts towards a more OLED-focused business structure, and it believes it is on track to build a "firm foundation for an OLED-focused business portfolio for future growth, and expect to show solid performance starting from next year"
