Some say SK may be pressuring company to keep technology at home
Despite South Korean display maker LG Display's clarification on Wednesday that it will not soon launch a manufacturing line for organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, experts said on Thursday that the plan is not just fiction.
"I'm inclined to believe that at the current stage that the two sides - the Guangdong provincial government and LG Display - have not agreed on all the details and do not want to disclose too much about the project to the public. But the project will eventually be launched," Liu Buchen, a senior home appliance industry analyst, told the Global Times on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Beijing Business Today cited a representative of LG Display's Guangzhou plant as saying that the company has "no plans (about the Guangzhou production line) so far."
Sang-Deog Yeo, head of LG Display's OLED division, said during a press conference in October 2016 that it was possible that the company would make OLED display modules in Guangzhou, according to domestic media reports.
LG Display could not be reached for comment as of press time.
Liu said that a document issued by the office of the Guangdong provincial government on April 27 showed that the LG OLED plan for a plant in Guangzhou really exists.
According to the document, which Liu sent to the Global Times, the government should "speed up the LG Display OLED project ... to expand and optimize the industry chain."
The document, though absent from the website of the Guangdong provincial government, could still be viewed on some other government websites like that of the Jiangmen Administration for Industry and Commerce.
"It's very likely that the OLED production line will be launched eventually," Liu said.
Liu noted that the production line in Guangzhou is likely to produce large-scale OLED screens and complete machines.
But he stressed that there are indeed obstacles to this project, and one is that the South Korean government has always opposed offshoring OLED technologies.
Xiang Ligang, chief executive of domestic telecom industry portal cctime.com, told the Global Times on Thursday that the South Korean government may have put some restrictions on the company going abroad due to the potential opportunities that the production line can bring to the local economy in terms of revenue and employment.
Xiang cautioned that the political friction between South Korea and China in recent months may have also added difficulties to the execution of the project.
"The unsteady external environment caused by South Korea's deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system probably has brought some pressure on LG Display not to set up the OLED production line in China," Xiang said.
But Liu Dingding, an independent analyst, told the Global Times on Thursday that as South Korea is very dependent upon China's market, it won't be long until political tensions start to ease.
"I believe that the new South Korean president will take measures to repair the country's relations with China, and I think South Korean companies' business in China will soon return to normal," he noted.
But Liu Buchen cautioned that LG Display's OLED project, if it really starts, will exert great pressure on domestic display makers.
"The wolf is coming, and domestic companies must speed up their OLED industrial layout."
According to Liu, the home appliance industry analyst, many domestic companies have rushed to manufacture OLED small screens, but in terms of OLED big screens, LG Display has few competitors in China or anywhere in whole world.
He said that Beijing-based BOE Technology Group Co has managed to produce China's first OLED big screen, but it is more like a "concept product" that can't directly compete with LG Display's products.
Xiang also said that it will be "a big loss" for LG if its OLED line cannot be established in China, as it cannot grasp market changes in a timely and flexible way.
"China is a huge market (where) consumers tend to abandon obsolete electronic products at a frequent pace," he said.
