Samsung Display plans to expand its QD-OLED panel production capacity by 30% by the end of this year by reducing production takt time without additional investment in new equipment.
According to
The Elec report, Samsung Display’s Q1 production line for the production of QD-OLED panels currently has a monthly output of 30,000 pieces of 8.5-generation glass substrates. According to Samsung Display’s plan, this number will increase to nearly 40,000 units by the end of the year, with a maximum increase of 30%. At the same time, people familiar with the matter said that Samsung Display’s QD-OLED yield rate has also increased by 85%, which is also helpful for achieving the production increase target of QD-OLED panels.
It is not uncommon in the panel industry to increase production by reducing takt time. Last year, LG Display’s factory in Guangzhou used the same method to significantly increase the monthly production of panels from 60,000 to 90,000.
After increasing production at the end of the year,
Samsung Display will also produce 77-inch and 49-inch QD-OLED panels next year which means that QD-OLED panels will be available in 34-inch, 49-inch, 55-inch, 65-inch, and 77-inch products in the future.
As for whether Samsung Display will make additional investment in the Q1 production line after this production increase, it is unknown whether their largest customer Samsung Electronics will launch more QD-OLED TVs and monitors.
At present, QD-OLED is still at a disadvantage in terms of cost relative to its biggest competitor, OLED. The industry speculates that the cost of QD-OLED is at least 1.3 to 1.5 times higher than that of LG WOLED. In addition, Samsung Electronics will not increase the purchase price of panels because of the high cost of QD-OLED. If Samsung Display wants to make QD-OLED profitable in the long run, reducing costs will be the only way.
In addition, Samsung Display is also developing a technology that can reduce the two glass substrates of QD-OLED panels to one, but it is expected that it will not be applied next year.
