Newsletter
Today, July 25, 2017, LG Display published its financial report for the three-month period ending June 30, 2017, and revealed its plans for future investments in its OLED production lines. According to the data, LG Display’s revenues in the second quarter of the year increased by 13 percent from 5.855 trillion won ($5.24 billion) in Q2 2016, up to 6.629 trillion won ($5.93 billion). However, at the same time, its revenues have also decreased by six percent from 7.062 trillion won ($6.32 billion) in the first quarter of 2017.
As far as operating profits are concerned, LG Display recorded a significant year-on-year increase of 1,712 percent compared to Q2 2016 when the company registered an operating profit of 44 billion won ($39.4 million). In contrast, LG Display recorded an operating profit of 804 billion won ($720 million) in Q2 2017, however once again the company’s performance in the second quarter was 22 percent weaker than in Q1 2017 when the firm registered an operating profit of 1.027 trillion won ($91.7 million). Moving on to the company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, LG Display’s EBITDA in Q2 2017 was 1.583 trillion won ($141 billion), representing a slight decrease from 1.743 trillion won ($156 billion) in Q1 2017, and a considerable increase from the company’s EBITDA of 833 billion won ($740 million) registered in the second quarter of 2016. As far as net income is concerned, LG Display experienced an increase of eight percentage points to a total of 737 billion won ($660 million) in Q2 2017, up from a net income of 679 billion won ($600 million) from a year ago. Additionally, the company experienced a year-on-year turnaround from Q2 2016 when it registered a net loss of 84 billion won ($75 million).
Aside from the earnings report, LG Display also shared some of its expansion plans in the OLED market earlier this week, including a new investment of 2.8 trillion won ($2.5 billion) in a large-sized (2,940mm X 3,370mm) OLED production line at its P10 plant located in Paju, South Korea. Furthermore, LG Display will invest five trillion won ($4.4 billion) in a new 6th generation (1,500mm X 1,850mm) plastic OLED (POLED) production line in Paju, and the company expects to invest a total of 15 trillion won ($13.4 billion) in its OLED production lines by 2020. LG Display also plans on investing in a new 8.5th generation large-sized (2,200mm X 2,500mm) OLED production line in Guangzhou, China, and will establish a new joint venture with a capital of 2.6 trillion won ($2.32 billion). In closing, the company’s CEO and Vice Chairman of LG Display Sang-Beom Han added that the company is seeing all the possibilities offered by the OLED market, including the global TV segment, as well as the mobile and automotive markets. Having said that, the company intends to “actively respond” to the demands of customers by expanding its OLED production capacity in a timely manner, as well as further developing diversified flexible panels for different applications.