LG Display reported its financial results for Q4 2018 - it reported an operating profit of â©279 billion ($250 million USD) due to strong shipments of IT panels and OLED TVs. LGD however gave a weak outlook to 2019 (for its LCD business).
LGD says that it will invest $7.1 billion in 2019 in capacity expansion, and $3.5 billion in 2020. It will divert all of its investments into OLED displays - with 60% going to large area OLED TV production and 40% going to small/medium pOLED production.
LGD produced 2.9 million OLED TV panels in 2018, and it expects to produce 3.8 million in 2019. Its OLED TV fab in Guangzhou, China, is expected to start mass production in Q3 2019. It seems as if LGD commits to expanding the Guangzhou fab to 60,000 monthly substrate (the first line will have a capacity of 30,000 substrates) - as it states that when the fab is online it will increase the company's OLED TV capacity to 130,000 monthly substrates (up from 70,000 today).
While LGD's OLED TV business is now profitable, its pOLED business is not - and it is still facing uncertainties (customer adoption). LGD's pOLED capacity is 45,000 monthly substrates (6-Gen).
