Samsung and LG to see improve Q1 earnings from display units
BOE and CSOT to also see huge improvement
Major display panel companies in South Korea and China are expected to see improved earnings in the first quarter.
South Korean analysts expect Samsung Display and LG Display to see significant improvement in their performances for the quarter compared to a year prior.
LG Display is expected record sales of 6.9 trillion won and operating income of 510 billion won, according to market consensus.
This will be a 46% jump in sales from a year prior. In the first quarter of 2020, LG Display had recorded a 361.9 billion won operating loss.
High demand for IT products due to the COVID-19 pandemic and increased prices of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels helped this growth.
LG Display is also ramping up production of large-sized OLED panels. The company’s Guangzhou OLED factory begin production late last year.
The company is expected to ship a million OLED TV panels per quarter this year.
The launch of Apple’s iPhone 12 is also to have significantly helped LG Display’s first quarter earnings.
Meanwhile, Samsung Display is expected record sales of 7.4 trillion won and operating income of 400 billion won, according to analysts.
Sales is a 12% increase from last year; the company recorded an operating loss of 290 billion won in the first quarter of 2020.
Shipment of mobile OLED panels for iPhone 12 and Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones is expected to have contributed to the growth.
However, Samsung Display is expected to lose around 100 billion won in the quarter from its shutdown of facilities related to LCD.
BOE’s first quarter is also expected to be strong. According to local media Yicai, BOE is expected its net income in the first quarter to be 5.2 billion yuan. This is larger than its net income for the entire year of 2020 of 5 billion yuan. It is also ten times its net income of 567 million yuan recorded in the first quarter of 2020.
The Chinese display giant attributed expanded panel sales for the growth. BOE is seeing large demand for LCD panels from IT products, while its production capacity has also expanded compared to last year.
Compatriot CSOT is also expecting its net income for the first quarter to be over 15 times of that of a year prior.